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QUEEN VICTORIA 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
EMINENT VICTORIANS 



TO 

VIRGINIA WOOLF 



QUEEN VICTORIA 



BY 



LYTTON STRACHEY 



m 



NEW YORK 
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 

1921 



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0OPYBI6HT, 1921, BY 
HABCOUBT, BBACE AND COMPANT, INO. \ 



JUN -g 1321 



THE QUINN a BODEN COMPANY 
HAHWAY N. J 



^C!.A614674 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Antecedents 1 

II. Childhood 25 

III. Lord Melbourne 71 

IV. Marriage 134 

V. Lord Palmerston 204 

VI. Last Years of the Prince Consort . . 253 

VII. Wu)owhood 297 

VIII. Mr. Gladstone and Lord Beaconsfield . . 327 

IX. Old Age 367 

X. The End 420 

Bibliography 425 

Index 431 






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ILLUSTRATIONS 

Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the Royal 
Family. From the picture of F. Winterhalter, at 
Buckingham Palace Frontispiece 

Princess Victoria in 1836. From a print after the 
picture of F. Winterhalter To Face Page 26 

Lord Melbourne. From the portrait by Sir Edwin 
Landseer, R.A., in possession of the Earl of Rosebery 82 

Queen Victoria in 1838. From the portrait by E. 
Corbould qq 

Prince Albert in 1840. From the portrait by John 
Partridge, at Buckingham Palace 134 

Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort in I860 254 

Queen Victoria in 1863 298 

Queen Victoria in 1876. From the portrait by Von 
Angeli, in possession of Coningsby Disraeli, Esq. Pre- 
sented by Her Majesty to the Earl of Beaconsfield 328 

Queen Victoria in 1897 368 



Authority for every important statement of fact in the 
following pages will he found in the footnotes. The full titles 
of the works to which reference is made are given in the 
Bibliography at the end of the volume. 

The author is indebted to the Trustees of the British 
Museum for their permission to make use of certain unpublished 
passages in the manuscript of the Greville Memoirs. 



QUEEN VICTORIA 

CHAPTER I 

ANTECEDENTS 

I 

On November 6, 1817, died the Prin^-S9 Char- 
lotte, only child of the Prince Regent, and heir 
to the crown of England. Her short life had 
hardly been a happy one. By nature impulsive, 
capricious, and vehement, she had always longed 
for liberty; and she had never possessed it. She 
had been brought up among violent family quar- 
rels, had been early separated from her disrep- 
utable and eccentric mother, and handed over to 
the care of her disreputable and selfish father. 
When she was seventeen, he decided to marry her 
off to the Prince of Orange; she, at first, acqui- 
esced; but, suddenly falling in love with Prince 
Augustus of Prussia, she determined to break off 
the engagement. This was not her first love af- 
fair, for she had previously carried on a clandes- 
tine correspondence with a Captain Hess. Prince 

1 



2 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Augustus was already married, morgan atically, 
but she did not know it, and he did not tell her. 
While she was spinning out the negotiations with 
the Prince of Orange, the alhed sovereigns — it 
was June, 1814 — arrived in London to celebrate 
their victory. Among them, in the suite of the 
Emperor of Russia, was the young and handsome 
Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. He made sev- 
eral attempts to attract the notice of the Princess, 
but she, with her heart elsewhere, paid very little 
attention. Next month the Prince Regent, dis- 
covering that his daughter was having secret meet- 
ings with Prince Augustus, suddenly appeared 
upon the scene and, after dismissing her household, 
sentenced her to a strict seclusion in Windsor 
Park. " God Ahnighty grant me patience! " she 
exclaimed, falling on her knees in an agony of agi- 
tation: then she jumped up, ran down the back- 
stairs and out into the street, hailed a passing 
cab, and drove to her mother's house in Bays- 
water. She was discovered, pursued, and at 
length, yielding to the persuasions of her uncles, 
the Dukes of York and Sussex, of Brougham, 
and of the Bishop of Salisbury, she returned to 
Carlton House at two o'clock in the morning. 
She was immured at Windsor, but no more was 
heard of the Prince of Orange. Prince Augustus, 



ANTECEDENTS 3 

too, disappeared. The way was at last open to 
Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.^ 

This Prince was clever enough to get round the 
Regent, to impress the Ministers, and to make 
friends with another of the Princess's uncles, the 
Duke of Kent. Through the Duke he was able to 
communicate privately with the Princess, who 
now declared that he was necessary to her happi- 
ness. When, after Waterloo, he was in Paris, 
the Duke's aide-de-camp carried letters backwards 
and forwards across the Channel. In January 
1816 he was invited to England, and in May 
the marriage took place.^ 

The character of Prince Leopold contrasted 
strangely with that of his wife. The younger 
son of a German princeling, he was at this time 
twenty-six years of age; he had served with dis- 
tinction in the war against Napoleon; he had 
shown considerable diplomatic skill at the Con- 
gress of Vienna ; ^ and he was now to try his hand 
at the task of taming a tumultuous Princess. 
Cold and formal in manner, collected in speech, 
careful in action, he soon dominated the wild, 
impetuous, generous creature by his side. There 

1 Greville, II, 326-8 ; Stockmar, chap, i, 86 ; Knight, I, chape, 
xv-xviii and Appendix, and II, chap. i. 

2 Grey, 384, 386-8; Letters, II, 40. 
a Grey, 375-86. 



4 QUEEN VICTORIA 

was much in her, he found, of which he could 
not approve. She quizzed, she stamped, she 
roared with laughter; she had very little of that 
self-command which is especially required of 
princes; her manners were abominable. Of the 
latter he was a good judge, having moved, as 
he himself explained to his niece many years 
later, in the best society of Europe, being in fact 
" what is called in French de la fleur des pois." 
There was continual friction, but every scene 
ended in the same way. Standing before him 
like a rebellious boy in petticoats, her body pushed 
forward, her hands behind her back, with flaming 
cheeks and sparkling eyes, she would declare at 
last that she was ready to do whatever he wanted. 
" If you wish it, I will do it," she would say. " I 
want nothing for myself," he invariably answered; 
"when I press something on you, it is from a 
conviction that it is for your interest and for 
your good."^ 

Among the members of the household at Clare- 
mont, near Esher, where the royal pair were 
established, was a young German physician. Chris- 
tian Friedrich Stockmar. He was the son of 
a minor magistrate in Coburg, and, after taking 
part as a medical officer in the war, he had settled 

^Letters, I, 216, 222-3; II, 39-40; Stockmar, 87-90. 



ANTECEDENTS 5 

down as a doctor in his native town. Here he 
had met Prince Leopold, who had been struck 
by his abihty, and, on, his marriage, brought him 
to England as his personal physician. A curious 
fate awaited this young man; many were the gifts 
which the future held in store for him — many 
and various — influence, power, mystery, unhappi- 
ness, a broken heart. At Claremont his position 
was a very humble one; but the Princess took 
a fancy to him, called him " Stocky," and romped 
with him along the corridors. Dyspeptic by con- 
stitution, melancholic by temperament, he could 
yet be lively on occasion, and was known as a 
wit in Coburg. He was virtuous, too, and ob- 
served the royal menage with approbation. " My 
master," he wrote in his diary, " is the best of all 
husbands in all the five quarters of the globe; 
and his wife bears him an amount of love, the 
greatness of which can only be compared with the 
English national debt." Before long he gave 
proof of another quality — a quality which was to 
colour the whole of his life — cautious sagacity. 
When, in the spring of 1817, it was known that 
the Princess was expecting a child, the post of 
one of her physicians-in-ordinary was offered to 
him, and he had the good sense to refuse it. He 
perceived that his colleagues would be jealous of 



6 QUEEN VICTORIA 

him, that his advice would probably not be taken, 
but that, if anything were to go wrong, it would 
be certainly the foreign doctor who would be 
blamed. Very soon, indeed, he came to the 
opinion that the low diet and constant bleedings, 
to which the unfortunate Princess was subjected, 
were an error; he drew the Prince aside, and 
begged him to communicate this opinion to the 
Enghsh doctors; but it was useless. The fashion- 
able lowering treatment was continued for months. 
On November 5, at nine o'clock in the evening, 
after a labour of over fifty hours, the Princess 
was delivered of a dead boy. At midnight her 
exhausted strength gave way. Then, at last, 
Stockmar consented to see her; he went in, and 
found her obviously dying, while the doctors 
were plying her with wine. She seized his hand 
and pressed it. " They have made me tipsy," she 
said. After a little he left her, and was already 
in the next room when he heard her call out in 
her loud voice: "Stocky! Stocky!" As he ran 
back the death-rattle was in her throat. She tossed 
herself violently from side to side; then suddenly 
drew up her legs, and it was over. 

The Prince, after hours of watching, had left 
the room for a few moments' rest; and Stock- 
mar had now to tell him that his wife was dead. 



ANTECEDENTS 7 

At first he could not be made to realise what had 
happened. On their way to her room he sank 
down on a chair while Stockmar knelt beside him : 
it was all a dream; it was impossible. At last, 
by the bed, he, too, knelt down and kissed the cold 
hands. Then rising and exclaiming, " Now I 
am quite desolate. Promise me never to leave 
me," he threw himself into Stockmar's arms.^ 

II 

The tragedy at Claremont was of a most 
upsetting kind. The royal kaleidoscope had sud- 
denly shifted, and nobody could tell how the 
new pattern would arrange itself. The succes- 
sion to the throne, which had seemed so satis- 
factorily settled, now became a matter of urgent 
doubt. 

George III was still living, an aged lunatic, 
at Windsor, completely impervious to the impres- 
sions of the outer world. Of his seven sons, 
the youngest was of more than middle age, and 
none had legitimate offspring. The outlook, 
therefore, was ambiguous. It seemed highly 
improbable that the Prince Regent, who had 
lately been obliged to abandon his stays, and 
presented a preposterous figure of debauched 

1 Stockmar, Biographische Skizze, and cap, iii. 



8 QUEEN VICTORIA 

obesity,^ could ever again, even on the suppo- 
sition that he divorced his wife and re-married, 
become the father of a family. Besides the Duke 
of Kent, who must be noticed separately, the 
other brothers, in order of seniority, were the 
Dukes of York, Clarence, Cumberland, Sussex, 
and Cambridge; their situations and prospects 
require a brief description. The Duke of York, 
whose escapades in times past with Mrs. Clarke 
and the army had brought him into trouble, now 
divided his life between London and a large, 
extravagantly ordered and extremely uncomfort- 
able country house where he occupied himself 
with racing, whist, and improper stories. He was 
remarkable among the princes for one reason: 
he was the only one of them — so we are informed 
by a highly competent observer — who had the 
feelings of a gentleman. He had been long 
married to the Princess Royal of Prussia, a lady 
who rarely went to bed and was perpetually sur- 
rounded by vast numbers of dogs, parrots, and 
monkeys.^ They had no children. The Duke 
of Clarence had lived for many years in complete 
obscurity with Mrs. Jordan, the actress, in Bushey 
Park. By her he had had a large family of sons 

1 Creevey, I, 264, 272 : " Prinny has let loose Ms belly, which now 
reaches his knees; otherwise he is said to be well," 279. 

2 Greville, I, 5-7. 



ANTECEDENTS 9 

and daughters, and had appeared, in effect, to 
be married to her, when he suddenly separated 
from her and offered to marry Miss Wykeham, a 
crazy woman of large fortune, who, however, 
would have nothing to say to him. Shortly 
afterwards Mrs. Jordan died in distressed cir- 
cumstances in Paris.^ The Duke of Cumberland 
was probably the most unpopular man in 
England. Hideously ugly, with a distorted eye, 
he was bad-tempered and vindictive in private, 
a violent reactionary in pohtics, and was subse- 
quently suspected of murdering his valet and of 
having carried on an amorous intrigue of an 
extremely scandalous kind.^ He had lately 
married a German Princess, but there were as 
yet no children by the marriage. The Duke of 
Sussex had mildly literary tastes and collected 
books.^ He had married Lady Augusta INIurray, 
by whom he had two children, but the marriage, 
under the Royal Marriages Act, was declared 
void. On Lady Augusta's death, he married 
Lady Ceciha Buggin; she changed her name to 
Underwood; but this marriage also was void. Of 
the Duke of Cambridge, the youngest of the 
brothers, not very much was known. He lived 

iGreville, IV, 2. 

2Stockmar, 95; Creevey, I, 148; Greville, I, 228; Lieven, 183-4. 

3 Crawford, 24-. 



10 QUEEN VICTORIA 

in Hanover, wore a blonde wig, chattered and 
fidgeted a great deal, and was unmarried/ 

Besides his seven sons, George III had five 
surviving daughters. Of these, two — the Queen 
of Wiirtemberg and the Duchess of Gloucester — 
were married and childless. The three unmarried 
princesses — Augusta, Elizabeth, and Sophia — 
were all over forty. 

Ill 

The fourth son of George III was Edward, 
Duke of Kent. He was now fifty years of age — 
a talh stout, vigorous man, highly-coloured, with 
bushy eyebrows, a bald top to his head, and 
what hair he had carefully dyed a glossy black. 
His dress was extremely neat, and in his whole 
appearance there was a rigidity which did not 
belie his character. He had spent his early life 
in the army — at Gibraltar, in Canada, in the West 
Indies — and, under the influence of military 
training, had become at first a disciplinarian and 
at last a martinet. In 1802, having been sent to 
Gibraltar to restore order in a mutinous garrison, 
he was recalled for undue severity, and his active 
career had come to an end. Since then he had 
spent his life regulating his domestic arrange- 

1 Crawford, 80, 113. 



ANTECEDENTS 11 

merits with great exactitude, busying himself 
with the affairs of his numerous dependents, 
designing clocks, and struggling to restore order 
to his finances, for, in spite of his being, as some- 
one said who knew him well " regie comme du 
papier a musique/" and in spite of an income of 
£24,000 a year, he was hopelessly in debt. He 
had quarrelled with most of his brothers, particu- 
larly with the Prince Regent, and it was only 
natural that he should have joined the political 
Opposition and become a pillar of the Whigs. 
What his political opinions may actually have 
been is open to doubt; it has often been asserted 
that he was a Liberal, or even a Radical; and, 
if we are to believe Robert Owen, he was a neces- 
sitarian Socialist. His relations with Owen — 
the shrewd, gullible, high-minded, wrong-headed, 
illustrious and preposterous father of Socialism 
and Co-operation — were curious and character- 
istic. He talked of visiting the Mills at New 
Lanark; he did, in fact, preside at one of Owen's 
public meetings; he corresponded with him on 
confidential terms, and he even (so Owen assures 
us) retm-ned, after his death, from " the sphere 
of spirits " to give encouragement to the Owenites 
on earth. " In an especial manner," says Owen, 
" I have to name the very anxious feelings of the 



12 QUEEN VICTORIA 

spirit of his Royal Highness the late Duke of 
Kent (who early informed me there were no 
titles in the spiritual spheres into which he had 
entered), to benefit, not a class, a sect, a party, 
or any particular country, but the whole of the hu- 
man race through futurity." " His whole spirit- 
proceeding with me has been most beautiful," 
Owen adds, "making his own appointments; and 
never in one instance has this spirit not been 
punctual to the minute he had named." But Owen 
was of a sanguine temperament. He also num- 
bered among his proselytes President Jefferson, 
Prince Metternich, and Napoleon; so that some 
uncertainty must still linger over the Duke of 
Kent's views. But there is no uncertainty about 
another circumstance: his Royal Highness bor- 
rowed from Robert Owen, on various occasions, 
various sums of money which were never repaid 
and amounted in all to several hundred pounds.^ 
After the death of the Princess Charlotte it 
was clearly important, for more than one reason, 
that the Duke of Kent should marry. From the 
point of view of the nation, the lack of heirs in 
the reigning family seemed to make the step 
ahnost obligatory; it was also likely to be highly 

1 Stockmar, 113-3; Letters, I, 8; Crawford, 27-30; Owen, 195-4, 
197-8, 199, 229. 



ANTECEDENTS 13 

expedient from the point of view of the Duke. 
To marry as a pubhc duty, for the sake of the royal 
succession, would surely deserve some recognition 
from a grateful country. When the Duke of 
York had married he had received a settlement 
of .£25,000 a year. Why should not the Duke 
of Kent look forward to an equal sum? But 
the situation was not quite simple. There was 
the Duke of Clarence to be considered; he was 
the elder brother, and, if lie married, would clearly 
have the prior claim. On the other hand, if the 
Duke of Kent married, it was important to 
remember that he would be making a serious sac- 
rifice: a lady was involved. 

The Duke, reflecting upon all these matters 
with careful attention, happened, about a month 
after his niece's death, to visit Brussels, and 
learnt that Mr. Creevey was staying in the town. 
Mr. Creevey was a close friend of the leading 
Whigs and an inveterate gossip; and it occurred 
to the Duke that there could be no better channel 
through which to communicate his views upon 
the situation to political circles at home. Appar- 
ently it did not occur to him that Mr. Creevey 
was malicious and might keep a diary. He 
therefore sent for him on some trivial pretext, 
and a remarkable conversation ensued. 



14 QUEEN VICTORIA 

After referring to the death of the Princess, 
to the improbability of the Regent's seeking a 
divorce, to the childlessness of the Duke of York, 
and to the possibility of the Duke of Clarence 
marrying, the Duke adverted to his own posi- 
tion. " Should the Duke of Clarence not marry," 
he said, " the next prince in succession is myself, 
and although I trust I shall be at all times ready 
to obey any call my country may make upon me, 
God only knows the sacrifice it will be to make, 
whenever I shall think it my duty to become a 
married man. It is now seven-and twenty years 
that Madame St. Laurent and I have lived 
together: we are of the same age, and have been 
in all climates, and in all difficulties together, 
and you may well imagine, Mr. Creevey, the pang 
it will occasion me to part with her. I put it 
to your own feelings — in the event of any sepa- 
ration between you and Mrs. Creevey. . . . As 
for Madame St. Laurent herself, I protest I 
don't know what is to become of her if a marriage 
is to be forced upon me; her feelings are already 
so agitated upon the subject." The Duke went 
on to describe how, one morning, a day or two 
after the Princess Charlotte's death, a paragraph 
had appeared in the Morning Chronicle^ alluding 
to the possibiHty of his marriage. He had 



ANTECEDENTS 15 

received the newspaper at breakfast together 
with his letters, and " I did as is my constant 
practice, I threw the newspaper across the table 
to Madame St. Laurent, and began to open and 
read my letters. I had not done so but a very 
short time, when my attention was called to 
an extraordinary noise and a strong convulsive 
movement in Madame St. Laurent's throat. For 
a short time I entertained serious apprehensions 
for her safety; and when, upon her recovery, I 
enquired into the occasion of this attack, she 
pointed to the article in the Morning Chromcle.'^ 
The Duke then returned to the subject of 
the Duke of Clarence. " My brother the Duke of 
Clarence is the elder brother, and has certainly 
the right to marry if he chooses, and I would 
not interfere with him on any account. If he 
wishes to be king — to be married and have 
children, poor man — God help him! let him do 
9o. For myself — I am a man of no ambition, and 
wish only to remain as I am. . . . Easter, 
you know, falls very early this year — the 22nd 
of March. If the Duke of Clarence does not 
take any step before that time, I must find some 
pretext to reconcile Madame St. Laurent to 
my going to England for a short time. When 
once there, it will be easy for me to consult with 



16 QUEEN VICTORIA 

my friends as to the proper steps to be taken. 
Should the Duke of Clarence do nothing before 
that time as to marrying it will become my duty, 
no doubt, to take some measures upon the subject 
myself." Two names, the Duke said, had been 
mentioned in this connection — those of the 
Princess of Baden and the Princess of Saxe- 
Coburg. The latter, he thought, would perhaps 
be the better of the two, from the circumstance 
of Prince Leopold being so popular with the 
nation; but before any other steps were taken, 
he hoped and expected to see justice done to 
Madame St. Laurent. " She is," he explained, 
" of very good family, and has never been an 
actress, and I am the first and only person who 
ever lived with her. Her disinterestedness, too, 
has been equal to her fidelity. When she first 
came to me it was upon £100 a year. That sum 
was afterwards raised to £400, and finally to 
£1000; but when my debts made it necessary 
for me to sacrifice a great part of my income, 
Madame St. Laurent insisted upon again return- 
ing to her income of £400 a year. If Madame 
St. Laurent is to return to live amongst her 
friends, it must be in such a state of independence 
as to command their respect. I shall not require 
very much, but a certain number of servants and 



ANTECEDENTS 17 

a carriage are essentials." As to his own settle- 
ment, the Duke observed that he would expect 
the Duke of York's marriage to be considered 
the precedent. " That," he said, " was a marriage 
for the succession, and £25,000 for income was 
settled, in addition to all his other income, 
purely on that account. I shall be contented 
with the same arrangement, without making 
any demands grounded on the difference of the 
value of money in 1792 and at present. As 
for the payment of my debts," the Duke con- 
cluded, " I don't call them great. The nation, 
on the contrary, is greatly my debtor." Here a 
clock struck, and seemed to remind the Duke 
that he had an appointment; he rose, and Mr, 
Creevey left him. 

Who could keep such a communication secret? 
Certainly not INlr. Creevey. He hurried off to 
tell the Duke of Wellington, who was very 
much amused, and he wrote a long account of 
it to Lord Sefton, who received the letter " very 
apropos," while a surgeon was sounding liis 
bladder to ascertain whether he had a stone. " I 
never saw a fellow more astonished than he was," 
wrote Lord Sefton in his reply, " at seeing me 
laugh as soon as the operation was over. Nothing 
could be more first-rate than the royal Edward's 



18 QUEEN VICTORIA 

ingenuousness. One does not know which to 
admire most — the delicacy of his attachment to 
Madame St. Laurent, the refinement of his senti- 
ments towards the Duke of Clarence, or his own 
perfect disinterestedness in pecuniary matters."^ 
As it turned out, both the brothers decided to 
marry. The Duke of Kent, selecting the Princess 
of Saxe-Coburg in preference to the Princess 
of Baden, was united to her on May 29, 1818. 
On June 11, the Duke of Clarence followed suit 
with a daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. 
But they were disappointed in their financial 
expectations; for though the Government brought 
forward proposals to increase their allowances, 
together with that of the Duke of Cumberland, 
the motions were defeated in the House of 
Commons. At this the Duke of Wellington was 
not surprised. "By God!" he said, "there is a 
great deal to be said about that. They are the 
damnedest millstones about the necks of any 
Government that can be imagined. They have 
insulted — personally insulted — two-thirds of the 
gentlemen of England, and how can it be won- 
dered at that they take their revenge upon them 
in the House of Commons? It is their only 
opportunity, and I think, by God! they are quite 

1 Creevey, I, 267-71. 



ANTECEDENTS 19 

right to use it." ^ Eventually, however, Parlia- 
ment increased the Duke of Kent's annuity by 
£6000. 

The subsequent history of Madame St. Laurent 
has not transpired. 

IV 

The new Duchess of Kent, Victoria Mary 
Louisa, was a daughter of Francis, Duke of Saxe- 
Coburg-Saalfeld, and a sister of Prince Leopold. 
The family was an ancient one, being a branch 
of the great House of Wettin, which since the 
eleventh century had ruled over the March of 
Meissen on the Elbe. In the fifteenth century 
the whole possessions of the House had been 
divided between the Albertine and Ernestine 
branches: from the former descended the electors 
and kings of Saxony; the latter, ruling over 
Thuringia, became further subdivided into five 
branches, of which the duchy of Saxe-Coburg 
was one. This principality was very small, con- 
taining about 60,000 inhabitants, but it enjoyed 
independent and sovereign rights. During the 
disturbed years which followed the French Revo- 
lution, its affairs became terribly involved. The 
Duke was extravagant, and kept open house 
for the swarms of refugees, who fled eastward 

iCreevey, I, 276-7. 



20 QUEEN VICTORIA 

over Germany as the French power advanced. 
Among these was the Prince of Leiningen, an 
elderly beau, whose domains on the MoseUe 
had been seized by the French, but who was 
granted in compensation the territory of Amor- 
bach in Lower Franconia. In 1803 he married 
the Princess Victoria, at that time seventeen 
years of age. Three years later Duke Francis 
died a ruined man. The Napoleonic harrow 
passed over Saxe-Coburg. The duchy was seized 
by the French, and the ducal family were 
reduced to beggary, almost to starvation. At 
the same time the little principality of Amorbach 
was devastated by the French, Russian, and 
Austrian armies, marching and counter-marching 
across it. For years there was hardly a cow in 
the country, nor enough grass to feed a flock 
of geese. Such was the desperate plight of 
the family which, a generation later, was to 
have gained a foothold in half the reigning 
Houses of Europe. The Napoleonic harrow had 
indeed done its work; the seed was planted; and 
the crop would have surprised Napoleon. Prince 
Leopold, thrown upon his own resources at fifteen, 
made a career for himself and married the 
heiress of England. The Princess of Leiningen, 
struggling at Amorbach with poverty, military 



ANTECEDENTS 21 

requisitions, and a futile husband, developed an 
independence of character and a tenacity of 
purpose which were to prove useful in very- 
different circumstances. In 1814, her husband 
died, leaving her with two children and the 
regency of the principality. After her brother's 
marriage with the Princess Charlotte, it was 
proposed that she should marry the Duke of 
Kent; but she declined, on the ground that the 
guardianship of her children and the manage- 
ment of her domains made other ties undesirable. 
The Princess Charlotte's death, however, altered 
the case; and when the Duke of Kent renewed 
his offer, she accepted it. She was thirty-two 
years old^short, stout, with brown eyes and 
hair, and rosy cheeks, cheerful and voluble, and 
gorgeously attired in rustling silks and bright 
velvets.^ 

She was certainly fortunate in her contented 
disposition; for she was fated, all through her 
life, to have much to put up with. Her second 
marriage, with its dubious prospects, seemed at 
first to be chiefly a source of difficulties and 
discomforts. The Duke, declaring that he was 
still too poor to live in England, moved about 
with uneasy precision through Belgium and 

t Letters, I, 1-3; Grey, 378-81, 389; Crawford, 30-4; Stock- 
mar, 113. 



22 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Germany, attending parades and inspecting 
barracks in a neat military cap, while the English 
notabilities looked askance, and the Duke of 
Wellington dubbed him the Corporal. " God 
damme!" he exclaimed to Mr. Creevey, "d'ye 
know what his sisters call him? By God! they 
call him Joseph Surface!" At Valenciennes, 
where there was a review and a great dinner, 
the Duchess arrived with an old and ugly lady- 
in-waiting, and the Duke of Wellington found 
himself in a difficulty. " Who the devil is to 
take out the maid of honour?" he kept asking; 
but at last he thought of a solution. " Damme, 
Freemantle, find out the mayor and let him 
do it." So the Mayor of Valenciennes was 
brought up for the purpose, and — so we learn 
from Mr. Creevey — " a capital figure he was." 
A few days later, at Brussels, Mr. Creevey 
himself had an unfortunate experience. A mili- 
tary school was to be inspected — before breakfast. 
The company assembled; everything was highly 
satisfactory; but the Duke of Kent continued 
for so long examining every detail and asking 
meticulous question after meticulous question, 
that Mr. Creevey at last could bear it no longer, 
and whispered to his neighbour that he was 
damned hungry. The Duke of Wellington heard 



ANTECEDENTS 23 

him, and was delighted. " I recommend you," 
he said, " whenever you start with the royal 
family in a morning, and particularly with the 
Corporal, always to breakfast first." He and 
his staff, it turned out, had taken that precaution, 
and the great man amused himself, while the 
stream of royal inquiries poured on, by pointing 
at Mr. Creevey from time to time with the 
remark, " Voila le monsieur qui n'a pas 
dejeune! "^ 

Settled down at last at Amorbach, the time 
hung heavily on the Duke's hands. The estab- 
lishment was small, the country was impoverished; 
even clock-making grew tedious at last. He 
brooded — for in spite of his piety the Duke was 
not without a vein of superstition — over the 
prophecy of a gipsy at Gibraltar who told him 
that he was to have many losses and crosses, 
that he was to die in happiness, and that his only 
child was to be a great queen. Before long 
it became clear that a child was to be expected: 
the Duke decided that it should be born in 
England. Funds were lacking for the journey, 
but his determination was not to be set aside. 
Come what might, he declared, his child must be 
English-born. A carriage was hired, and the 

1 Creevey, I, 282-4. 



24. QUEEN VICTORIA 

Duke himself mounted the box. Inside were the 
Duchess, her daughter Feodora, a girl of fourteen, 
with maids, nurses, lap-dogs, and canaries. Off 
they drove — through Germany, through France: 
bad roads, cheap inns, were nothing to the 
rigorous Duke and the equable, abundant Duchess. 
The Channel was crossed, London was reached 
in safety. The authorities provided a set of 
rooms in Kensington Palace ; and there, on May 
24, 1819, a female infant was born.^ 

1 Crawford, 25, 37-8, 



/■• J^f' 






A(3- 









k: 



CHAPTER II 

CHILDHOOD 

I 

The child who, in these not very impressive 
circumstances, appeared in the world, received 
but scant attention. There was small reason 
to foresee her destiny. The Duchess of Clarence, 
two months before, had given birth to a daughter; 
this infant, indeed, had died almost immediately; 
but it seemed highly probable that the Duchess 
would again become a mother; and so it actually 
fell out. More than this, the Duchess of Kent 
was young, and the Duke was strong; there was 
every likelihood that before long a brother would 
follow, to snatch her faint chance of the suc- 
cession from the little princess. 

Nevertheless, the Duke had other views: there 
were prophecies. . . . At any rate, he would 
christen the child Elizabeth, a name of happy 
augury. In this, however, he reckoned without 
the Regent, who, seeing a chance of annoying 
his brother, suddenly announced that he himself 

25 



26 QUEEN VICTORIA 

would be present at the baptism, and signified 
at the same time that one of the godfathers was 
to be the Emperor Alexander of Russia. Anc 
so when the ceremony took place, and the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury asked by what name he 
was to baptise the child, the Regent replied 
"Alexandria." At this the Duke ventured to 
suggest that another name might be added. 
" Certainly," said the Regent; " Georgina? " " Or 
Elizabeth?" said the Duke. There was a pause, 
during which the Archbishop, with the baby in 
his lawn sleeves, looked with some uneasiness 
from one Prince to the other. " Very well, 
then," said the Regent at last, " call her after 
her mother. But Alexandrina must come first." 
Thus, to the disgust of her father, the child was 
christened Alexandrina Victoria.^ 

The Duke had other subjects of disgust. The 
meagre grant of the Commons had by no means 
put an end to his financial distresses. It was 
to be feared that his services were not appre- 
ciated by the nation. His debts continued to 
grow. For many years he had lived upon £7000 
a year; but now his expenses were exactly 
doubled; he could make no further reductions; 
as it was, there was not a single servant in his 

1 Murray, 62-3; Lee, 11-12. 




PRINCESS VICTORIA IN 1836. 
From the Portrait hy F. Winterhalter. 



CHILDHOOD 27 

establishment who was idle for a moment from 
morning to night. He poured out his griefs in 
a long letter to Robert Owen, whose sympathy 
had the great merit of being practical. " I now 
candidly state," he wrote, " that, after viewing 
the subject in every possible way, I am satisfied 
that, to continue to Hve in England, even in the 
quiet way in which we are going on, without 
splendour, and without show, nothing short of 
doubling the seven thousand pounds will do, 
REDUCTION BEING IMPOSSIBLE." It was clcar that 
he would be obliged to sell his house for £51,300: 
if that failed, he would go and live on the Con- 
tinent. " If my services are useful to my country, 
it surely becomes those who Imve the power to 
support me in substantiating those just claims 
I have for the very extensive losses and priva- 
tions I have experienced, during the very long 
period of my professional servitude in the 
Colonies; and if this is not attainable, it is a 
clear proof to me that they are not appreciated; 
and under that impression I shall not scruple, 
in due time, to resume my retirement abroad, 
when the Duchess and myself shall have fulfilled 
our duties in establishing the English birth of 
my child, and giving it material nutriment on 
the soil of Old England; and which we shall 



28 QUEEN VICTORIA 

certainly repeat, if Providence destines to g^ 
us any further increase of family." ^ 

In the meantime, he decided to spend the winter 
at Sidmouth, " in order," he told Owen, " that 
the Duchess may have the benefit of tepid sea 
bathing, and our infant that of sea air, on the 
fine coast of Devonshire, during the months of 
the year that are so odious in London." ^ In 
December the move was made. With the new 
year, the Duke remembered another prophecy. 
In 1820, a fortune-teller had told hun, two mem- 
bers of the Royal Family would die. Who would 
they be? He speculated on the various possi- 
bilities: the King, it was plain, could not live 
much longer; and the Duchess of York had been 
attacked by a mortal disease. Probably it would 
be the King and the Duchess of York; or perhaps 
the King and the Duke of York; or the King 
and the Regent. He himself was one of the 
healthiest men in England.^ " My brothers," 
he declared, " are not so strong as I am; I have 
lived a regular hfe. I shall outhve them all. 
The crown will come to me and my children."* 
He went out for a walk, and got his feet wet. 

lOwen, Journal, No. 1, February, 1853, 28-9. 
2 Ibid., 31. 
aCroker, I, 155. 
4Stockmar, 113. 



CHILDHOOD 29 

On coming home, he neglected to change his 
stockings. He caught cold, inflammation of the 
lungs set in, and on January 22 he was a dying- 
man. By a curious chance, young Dr. Stockmar 
was staying in the house at the time; two years 
before, he had stood by the death-bed of the 
Princess Charlotte; and now he was watching 
the Duke of Kent in his agony. On Stockmar's 
advice, a will was hastily prepared. The Duke's 
earthly possessions were of a negative character; 
but it was important that the guardianship of 
the unwitting child, whose fortunes were now 
so strangely changing, should be assured to the 
Duchess. The Duke was just able to understand 
the document, and to append his signature. 
Having inquired whether his writing was per- 
fectly clear, he became unconscious, and breathed 
his last on the following morning.^ Six days later 
came the fulfilment of the second half of the gip- 
sy's prophecy. The long, unhappy, and inglorious 
life of George the Third of England was ended. 

II 

Such was the confusion of affairs at Sidmouth, 
that the Duchess found herself without the means 
of returning to London. Prince Leopold hurried 

1 stockmar, 114-6, 



30 QUEEN VICTORIA 

down, and himself conducted his sister and her 
family, by slow and bitter stages, to Kensington. 
The widowed lady, in her voluminous blacks, 
needed all her equanimity to support her. Her 
prospects were more dubious than ever. She had 
£6000 a year of her own; but her husband's debts 
loomed before her like a mountain. Soon she 
learnt that the Duchess of Clarence was once 
more expecting a child. AMiat had she to look 
forward to in England? Why should she remain 
in a foreign country, among strangers, whose 
language she could not speak, whose customs 
she could not understand? Surely it would be 
best to return to Amorbach, and there, among her 
own people, bring up her daughters in economical 
obscurity. But she was an inveterate optimist; 
she had spent her life in struggles, and would 
not be daunted now. And besides, she adored 
her baby. " C'est mon bonheur, mes delices, mon 
existence," she declared; the darling should be 
brought up as an English princess, whatever 
lot awaited her. Prince Leopold came forward 
nobly with an offer of an additional £3000 a year ; 
and the Duchess remained at Kensington.^ 

The child herself was extremely fat, and bore 
a remarkable resemblance to her grandfather. 

1 Letters, I, 15, 257-8; Grey, App. A. 



CHILDHOOD 31 

" C'est I'image du feu Roi!" exclaimed the 
Duchess. " C'est le Roi Georges en jupons," 
echoed the surrounding ladies, as the little crea- 
ture waddled with difficulty from one to the 
other/ 

Before long, the world began to be slightly 
interested in the nursery at Kensington. When, 
early in 1821, the Duchess of Clarence's second 
child, the Princess Elizabeth, died within three 
months of its birth, the interest increased. Great 
forces and fierce antagonisms seemed to be 
moving, obscurely, about the royal cradle. It 
was a time of faction and anger, of violent 
repression and profound discontent. A powerful 
movement, which had for long been checked 
by adverse circumstances, was now spreading 
throughout the country. New passions, new 
desires, were abroad; or rather old passions and 
old desires, reincarnated with a new potency: 
love of freedom, hatred of injustice, hope for 
the future of man. The mighty still sat proudly 
in their seats, dispensing their ancient tyranny; 
but a storm was gathering out of the darkness, 
and already there was lightning in the sky. But 
the vastest forces must needs operate through 
frail human instruments; and it seemed for many 

1 Granville, I, 168-9. 



32 QUEEN VICTORIA 

years as if the great cause of English hberalism 
hung upon the life of the little girl at Kensington. 
She alone stood between the country and her 
terrible uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, the 
hideous embodiment of reaction. Inevitably, the 
Duchess of Kent threw in her lot with her 
husband's party; Whig leaders, Radical agitators, 
rallied round her; she was intimate with the 
bold Lord Durham, she was on friendly terms 
with the redoubtable O'Connell himself. She 
received Wilberforce — though, to be sure, she 
did not ask him to sit down.^ She declared in 
public that she put her faith in " the liberties 
of the People." ^ It was certain that the young 
Princess would be brought up in the way that 
she should go; yet there, close behind the throne, 
waiting, sinister, was the Duke of Cumberland. 
Brougham, looking forward into the future in 
his scurrilous fashion, hinted at dreadful possi- 
bilities. " I never prayed so heartily for a Prince 
before," he wrote, on hearing that George IV 
had been attacked by illness. " If he had gone, 
all the troubles of these villains [the Tory 
Ministers] went with him, and they had Fred. I 
[the Duke of York] their own man for his life. 
. . . He [Fred. I] won't live long either; that 

1 Wilberforce, William, V, 71-2. 2 Letters, I, 17. 



CHILDHOOD 33 

Prince of Blackguards, ' Brother William,' is 
as bad a life, so we come in the course of nature 
to be assassinated by King Ernest I or Regent 
Ernest [the Duke of Cumberland].'" Such 
thoughts were not peculiar to Brougham; in 
the seething state of public feeling, they con- 
stantly leapt to the surface; and, even so late as 
the year previous to her accession, the Radical 
newspapers were full of suggestions that the 
Princess Victoria was in danger from the machina- 
tions of her wicked uncle.^ 

But no echo of these conflicts and forebodings 
reached the little Drina — for so she was called 
in the family circle — as she played with her dolls, 
or scampered down the passages, or rode on the 
donkey her uncle York had given her ^ along 
the avenues of Kensington Gardens. The fair- 
haired, blue-ej^ed child was idolised by her nurses, 
and her mother's ladies, and her sister Feodora; 
and for a few years there was danger, in spite 
of her mother's strictness, of her being spoilt. 
From time to time, she would fly into a violent 
passion, stamp her Httle foot, and set everyone 
at defiance; whatever they might say, she would 
not learn her letters — no, she would not; after- 

iCreevey, I, 297-8. 2 Jerrold, Ewrly Court, 15-17. 

i Letters, I, 10. 



34 QUEEN VICTORIA 

wards, she was very sorry, and burst into tears; 
but her letters remained unlearnt. When she 
was five years old, however, a change came, with 
the appearance of Fraulein Lehzen. This lady, 
who was the daughter of a Hanoverian clergy- 
man and had previously been the Princess 
Feodora's governess, soon succeeded in instilling 
a new spirit into her charge. At first, indeed, she 
was appalled by the little Princess's outbursts 
of temper; never in her life, she declared, had 
she seen such a passionate and naughty child. 
Then she observed something else; the child was 
extraordinarily truthful; whatever punishment 
might follow, she never told a lie.^ Firm, very 
firm, the new governess yet had the sense to 
see that all the firmness in the world would be 
useless, unless she could win her way into little 
Drina's heart. She did so, and there were no 
more difficulties. Drina learnt her letters like 
an angel ; and she learnt other things as well. The 
Baroness de Spath taught her how to make little 
board boxes and decorate them with tinsel and 
painted flowers ; ^ her mother taught her religion. 
Sitting in the pew every Sunday morning, the 
child of six was seen listening in rapt atten- 
tion to the clergyman's endless sermon, for she 

i Letters, I, 14; Girlhood, 1, 280. 2 Crawford, 6. 



CHILDHOOD 35 

was to be examined upon it in the afternoon/ The 
Duchess was determined that her daughter, from 
the earhest possible moment, should be prepared 
for her high station in a way that would conmiend 
itself to the most respectable; her good, plain, 
thrifty German mind recoiled with horror and 
amazement from the shameless junketings at Carl- 
ton House; Drina should never be allowed to for- 
get for a moment the virtues of simphcity, regu- 
larity, propriety, and devotion. The little girl, 
however, was really in small need of such lessons, 
for she was naturally simple and orderly, slie was 
pious without difficulty, and her sense of propriety 
was keen. She understood very well the niceties 
of her own position. When, a child of six, Ladj^" 
Jane EUice was taken by her grandmother to 
Kensington Palace, she was put to play with the 
Princess Victoria, who was the same age as her- 
self. The young visitor, ignorant of etiquette, be- 
gan to make free with the toys on the floor, in a 
way which was a little too familiar; but "You 
must not touch those," she was quickly told, " they 
are mine; and I may call you Jane, but you must 
not call me Victoria." ^ The Princess's most con- 
stant playmate was Victoire, the daughter of Sir 
John Conroy, the Duchess's major-domo. The 

1 Smith, 21-2. 2 Cornhitl Magazine, LXXV, 730. 



36 QUEEN VICTORIA 

two girls were very fond of one another; they 
would walk hand in hand together in Kensington 
Gardens. But little Drina was perfectly aware 
for which of them it was that they were followed, 
at a respectful distance, by a gigantic scarlet 
flunkey/ 

Warm-hearted, responsive, she loved her dear 
Lehzen, and she loved her dear Feodora, and her 
dear Victoire, and her dear Madame de Spath. 
And her dear Mamma ... of course, she loved 
her too; it was her duty; and yet — she could not 
tell why it was — she was always happier when she 
was staying with her Uncle Leopold at Clare- 
mont. There old Mrs. Louis, who, years ago, had 
waited on her Cousin Charlotte, petted her to her 
heart's content; and her uncle himself was won- 
derfully kind to her, talking to her seriously and 
gently, almost as if she were a grown-up person. 
She and Feodora invariably wept when the too 
short visit was over, and they were obliged to re- 
turn to the dutiful monotony, and the affectionate 
supervision of Kensington. But sometimes when 
her mother had to stay at home, she was allowed 
to go out driving all alone with her dear Feodora 
and her dear Lehzen, and she could talk and look 
as she liked, and it was veiy delightful.^ 

1 Hunt, II, 257-8. 2 Letters, I, 10, 18. 



CHILDHOOD 37 

The visits to Claremont were frequent enough; 
but one day, on a special occasion, she paid one of 
a rarer and more exciting kind. When she was 
seven years old, she and her mother and sister 
were asked by the King to go down to Windsor. 
George IV, who had transferred his fraternal ill- 
temper to his sister-in-law and her family, had at 
last grown tired of sulking, and decided to be 
agreeable. The old rip, bewigged and gouty, 
ornate and enormous, with his jewelled mistress 
by his side and his flaunting court about him,^ re- 
ceived the tiny creature who was one day to hold 
in those same halls a very different state. " Give 
me your little paw," he said; and two ages 
touched. Next morning, driving in his phaeton 
with the Duchess of Gloucester, he met the Duch- 
ess of Kent and her child in the Park. " Pop her 
in," were his orders, which, to the terror of the 
mother and the dehght of the daughter, were im- 
mediately obeyed. Off they dashed to Virginia 
Water, where there was a great barge, full of 
lords and ladies fishing, and another barge with a 
band; and the King ogled Feodora, and praised 
her manners, and then turned to his own small 
niece. "What is your favourite tune? The band 
shall play it." " God save the King, sir," was 
the instant answer. The Princess's reply has been 



38 QUEEN VICTORIA 

praised as an early example of a tact which was 
afterwards famous. But she was a very truthful 
child, and perhaps it was her genuine opinion/ 

III 
In 1827 the Duke of York, who had found some 
consolation for the loss of his wife in the sym- 
pathy of the Duchess of Rutland, died, leaving 
behind him the unfinished immensity of Stafford 
House and £200,000 worth of debts. Three years 
later George IV also disappeared, and the Duke 
of Clarence reigned in his stead. The new Queen, 
it was now clear, would in all probability never 
again be a mother; the Princess Victoria, there- 
fore, was recognised by Parliament as heir-pre- 
simiptive; and the Duchess of Kent, whose annu- 
ity had been doubled five years previously, was 
now given an additional £10,000 for the mainte- 
nance of the Princess, and was appointed regent, 
in case of the death of the King before the major- 
ity of her daughter. At the same time a great 
convulsion took place in the constitution of the 
State. The power of the Tories, who had dom- 
inated England for more than forty years, sud- 
denly began to crumble. In the tremendous 
struggle that followed, it seemed for a moment 

1 Letters, I, 11-12; Lee, 26. 



CHILDHOOD 39 

as if the tradition of generations might be snapped, 
as if the bhnd tenacity of the reactionaries and 
the determined fury of their enemies could have 
no other issue than revolution. But the forces of 
compromise triumphed: the Reform Bill was 
passed. The centre of gravity in the constitution 
was shifted towards the middle classes; the Whigs 
came into power; and the complexion of the Gov- 
ernment assumed a Liberal tinge. One of the 
results of this new state of affairs was a change in 
the position of the Duchess of Kent and her daugh- 
ter. From being the protegees of an opposition 
clique, they became assets of the official majority 
of the nation. The Princess Victoria was hence- 
forward the living symbol of the victory of the 
middle classes. 

The Duke of Cumberland, on the other hand, 
suffered a corresponding eclipse: his claws had 
been pared by the Reform Act. He grew insig- 
nificant and almost harmless, though his ugliness 
remained; he was the wicked uncle still — but only 
of a story. 

The Duchess's own liberalism was not very pro- 
found. She followed naturally in the footsteps 
of her husband, repeating with conviction the 
catchwords of her husband's clever friends and 
the generalisations of her clever brother Leopold. 



40 QUEEN VICTORIA 

She herself had no pretensions to cleverness; she 
did not understand very much about the Poor 
Law and the Slave Trade and Political Economy; 
but she hoped that she did her duty; and she 
hoped — she ardently hoped — that the same might 
be said of Victoria. Her educational conceptions 
were those of Dr. Arnold, whose views were just 
then beginning to permeate society. Dr. Arnold's 
object was, first and foremost, to make his pupils 
" in the highest and truest sense of the words. 
Christian gentlemen " ; intellectual refinements 
might follow. The Duchess felt convinced that it 
was her supreme duty in life to make quite sure 
that her daughter should grow up into a Christian 
queen. To this task she bent all her energies ; and, 
as the child developed, she flattered herself that 
her efforts were not unsuccessful. When the Prin- 
cess was eleven, she desired the Bishops of London 
and Lincoln to submit her daughter to an exam- 
ination, and report upon the progress that had 
been made. " I feel the time to be now come," 
the Duchess explained, in a letter obviously drawn 
up by her own hand, " that what has been done 
should be put to some test, that if anything 
has been done in error of judgment it may be cor- 
rected, and that the plan for the future should be 
open to consideration and revision. ... I attend 



CHILDHOOD 41 

almost always myself every lesson, or a part; and 
as the lady about the Princess is a competent 
person, she assists Her in preparing Her lessons, 
for the v.arious masters, as I resolved to act in 
that manner so as to be Her Governess myself. 
. . . When she was at a proper age she commenced 
attending Divine Service regularly with me, and I 
have every feeling that she has religion at Her 
heart, that she is morally impressed with it to that 
degree, that she is less liable to error by its applica- 
tion to her feelings as a Child capable of reflec- 
tion." " The general bent of Her character," added 
the Duchess, " is strength of intellect, capable of 
receiving with ease, information, and with a pecu- 
liar readiness in coming to a very just and benig- 
nant decision on any point Her opinion is asked on. 
Her adherence to truth is of so marked a character 
that I feel no apprehension of that Bulwark being 
broken down by any circumstances." The Bish- 
ops attended at the Palace, and the result of their 
examination was all that could be wished. " In 
answering a great variety of questions proposed 
to her," they reported, " the Princess displayed an 
accurate knowledge of the most important feat- 
ures of Scripture History, and of the leading 
truths and precepts of the Christian Religion as 
taught by the Church of England, as well as an 



42 QUEEN VICTORIA 

acquaintance with the Chronology and principal 
facts of English History remarkable in so young 
a person. To questions in Geography, the use of 
the Globes, Arithmetic, and Latin Grammar, the 
answers which the Princess returned were equally 
satisfactory." They did not believe that the Duch- 
ess's plan of education was susceptible of any im- 
provement; and the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
who was also consulted, came to the same gratify- 
ing conclusion.^ 

One important step, however, remained to be 
taken. So far, as the Duchess explained to the 
Bishops, the Princess had been kept in ignorance 
of the station that she was likely to fill. " She is 
aware of its duties, and that a Sovereign should 
live for others; so that when Her innocent mind 
receives the impression of Her future fate, she 
receives it with a mind formed to be sensible of 
what is to be expected from Her, and it is to be 
hoped, she will be too well grounded in Her prin- 
ciples to be dazzled with the station she is to look 
to." ^ In the following year it was decided that 
she should be enlightened on this point. The well- 
known scene followed : the history lesson, the gene- 
alogical table of the Kings of England slipped 
beforehand by the governess into the book, the 

1 Letters, I, 14-17. 2 Ibid., I, 16. 



CHILDHOOD 43 

Princess's surprise, her inquiries, her final realisa- 
tion of the facts. When the child at last under- 
stood, she was silent for a moment, and then she 
spoke: "I will be good," she said. The words 
were something more than a conventional protes- 
tation, something more than the expression of a 
superimposed desire; they were, in their limitation 
and their intensity, their egotism and their humil- 
ity, an instinctive summary of the dominating 
qualities of a life. " I cried much on learning it," 
her Majesty noted long afterwards. No doubt, 
while the others were present, even her dear Leh- 
zen, the little girl kept up her self-command; and 
then crept away somewhere to ease her heart of an 
inward, unfamiliar agitation, with a handkerchief, 
out of her mother's sight.^ 

But her mother's sight was by no means an easy 
thing to escape. Morning and evening, day and 
night, there was no relaxation of the maternal 
vigilance. The child grew into the girl, the girl 
into the young woman; but still she slept in her 
mother's bedroom; still she had no place allowed 
her where she might sit or work by herself.^ An 
extraordinary watchfulness surrounded her every 
step: up to the day of her accession, she never 
went downstairs without someone beside her hold- 

1 Martin, I, 13. i Letters, I, 11. 



44 QUEENVICTORIA 

ing her hand.^ Plainness and regularity ruled the 
household. The hours, the days, the years passed 
slowly and methodically by. The dolls — the innu- 
merable dolls, each one so neatly dressed, each one 
with its name so punctiliously entered in the cata- 
logue — were laid aside, and a little music and a 
little dancing took their place. Taglioni came, to 
give grace and dignity to the figure,^ and La- 
blache, to train the piping treble upon his own 
rich bass. The Dean of Chester, the official pre- 
ceptor, continued his endless instruction in Scrip- 
ture history, while the Duchess of Northumber- 
land, the official governess, presided over every 
lesson with becoming solemnity. Without doubt, 
the Princess's main achievement during her school- 
days was linguistic. German was naturally the 
first language with which she was familiar; but 
English and French quickly followed; and she be- 
came virtually trilingual, though her mastery of 
English grammar remained incomplete. At the 
same time, she acquired a working knowledge of 
Italian and some smattering of Latin. Neverthe- 
less, she did not read very much. It was not an 
occupation that she cared for ; partly, perhaps, be- 
cause the books that were given her were all either 
sermons, which were very dull, or poetry, which was 

1 Girlhood, I, 42. 2 Crawford, 87. 



CHILDHOOD 45 

incomprehensible. Novels were strictly forbidden. 
Lord Durham persuaded her mother to get her 
some of Miss Martineau's tales, illustrating the 
truths of Political Economy, and they delighted 
her; but it is to be feared that it was the unaccus- 
tomed pleasure of the story that filled her mind, 
and that she never really mastered the theory of 
exchanges or the nature of rent.^ 

It was her misfortune that the mental atmos- 
phere which surrounded her during these years of 
adolescence was almost entirely feminine. No 
father, no brother, was there to break in upon the 
gentle monotony of the daily round with impetu- 
osity, with rudeness, with careless laughter and 
wafts of freedom from the outside world. The 
Princess was never called by a voice that was loud 
and growling; never felt, as a matter of course, 
a hard rough cheek on her own soft one; never 
climbed a wall with a boy. The visits to Claremont 
— dehcious little escapes into male society — came 
to an end when she was eleven years old and 
Prince Leopold left England to be King of the 
Belgians. She loved him still ; he was still " il mio 
secondo padre — or, rather, solo padre, for he is 
indeed like my real father, as I have none " ; but 
his fatherliness now came to her dimly and indi- 

iMartineau, II, 118-9. 



46 QUEEN VICTORIA 

rectly, through the cold channel of correspondence. 
Henceforward female duty, female elegance, fe- 
male enthusiasm, hemmed her completely in; and 
her spirit, amid the enclosing folds, was hardly 
reached by those two great influences, without 
which no growing life can truly prosper^ — humour 
and imagination. The Baroness Lehzen — for she 
had been raised to that rank in the Hanoverian 
nobility by George IV before he died — was the 
real centre of the Princess's world. When Feo- 
dora married, when Uncle Leopold went to Bel- 
gium, the Baroness was left without a competitor. 
The Princess gave her mother her dutiful regards; 
but Lehzen had her heart. The voluble, shrewd 
daughter of the pastor in Hanover, lavishing her 
devotion on her royal charge, had reaped her re- 
ward in an unbounded confidence and a passionate 
adoration. The girl would have gone through fire 
for her "^precious Lehzen," the " best and truest 
friend," she declared, that she had had since her 
birth. Her journal, begun when she was thirteen, 
where she registered day by day the small suc- 
cession of her doings and her sentiments, bears on 
every page of it the traces of the Baroness and her 
circumambient influence. The young creature that 
one sees there, self-depicted in ingenuous clarity, 
with her sincerity, her simplicity, her quick affec- 



CHILDHOOD 47 

tions and pious resolutions, might almost have been 
the daughter of a German pastor herself. Her 
enjoyments, her admirations, her engouements 
were of the kind that clothed themselves naturally 
in underlinings and exclamation marks. " It was 

"a delightful ride. We cantered a good deal. 
Sweet little Rosy went beautifully! ! We 
came home at a % past 1. . . . At 20 minutes 
to 7 we went out to the Opera. . . . Rubini came 
on and sang a song out of ' Anna Boulena ' quite 
beautifully. We came home at ^2 P^st 11." ^ In 
her comments on her readings, the mind of the 
Baroness is clearly revealed. One day, by some 
mistake, she was allowed to take up a volume of 
memoirs by Fanny Kemble. " It is certainly very 
pertly and oddly written. One would imagine by 
the style that the authoress must be very pert, and 

'Hot well bred; for there are so many vulgar ex- 
pressions in it. It is a great pity that a person 
endowed with so much talent, as Mrs. Butler really 
is, should turn it to so little account and publish a 
book which is so full of trash and nonsense which 
can only do her harm. I stayed up till 20 minutes 
past 9." Madame de Sevigne's letters, which the 
Baroness read aloud, met with more approval. 
"How truly elegant and natural her style is! It 

^Girlhood, I, 66-7. 



48 QUEEN VICTORIA 

is so full of naivete, cleverness, and grace." But 
her highest admiration was reserved for the Bishop 
of Chester's " Exposition of the Gospel of St. 
Matthew." " It is a very fine book indeed. Just 
the sort of one I like; which is just plain and 
comprehensible and full of truth and good feeling. 
It is not one of those learned books in which you 
have to cavil at almost every paragraph. Lehzen 
gave it me on the Sunday that I took the Sacra- 
ment." ^ A few weeks previously she had been 
confirmed, and she described the event as follows: 
"I felt that my confirmation was one of the most 
solemn and important events and acts in my life; 
and that I trusted that it might have a salutary 
effect on my mind. I felt deeply repentant for 
all what I had done which was wrong and trusted 
in God Almighty to strengthen my heart and 
mind; and to forsake all that is bad and follow all 
that is virtuous and right. I went with the firm 
determination to become a true Christian, to try 
and comfort my dear Mamma in all her griefs, 
trials, and anxieties, and to become a dutiful and 
affectionate daughter to her. Also to be obedient 
to dear Lehzen, who has done so much for me. I 
was dressed in a white lace dress, with a white 
crape bonnet with a wreath of white roses round 

1 Girlhood, I, 129. 



CHILDHOOD 49 

it. I went in the chariot with my dear Mamma 
and the others followed in another carriage." ^ 
One seems to hold in one's hand a small smooth 
crystal pebble, without a flaw and without a scin- 
tillation, and so transparent that one can see 
through it at a glance. 

Yet perhaps, after all, to the discerning eye, the 
purity would not be absolute. The careful searcher 
might detect, in the virgin soil, the first faint traces 
of an unexpected vein. In that conventual exist- 
ence visits were exciting events; and, as the Duch- 
ess had many relatives, they were not infrequent; 
aunts and uncles would often appear from Ger- 
many, and cousins too. When the Princess was 
fourteen she was delighted by the arrival of a 
couple of boys from Wiirtemberg, the Princes 
Alexander and Ernst, sons of her mother's sister 
and the reigning duke. " They are both extremely 
tall" she noted; "Alexander is very handsome^ 
and Ernst has a very hind expression. They are 
both extremely amiable." And their departure 
filled her with corresponding regrets. " We saw 
them get into the barge, and watched them sailing 
away for some time on the beach. They were so 
amiable and so pleasant to have in the house; they 
were always satisfied, always good-humoured; 

1 Qvrlhood, 1, 124-5. 



50 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Alexander took such care of me in getting out 
of the boat, and rode next to me ; so did Ernst." ^ 
Two years later, two other cousins arrived, the 
Princes Ferdinand and Augustus. " Dear Ferdi- 
nand," the Princess wrote, " has elicited universal 
admiration from all parties. . . . He is so very 
unaffected, and has such a very distinguished ap- 
pearance and carriage. They are both very dear 
and charming young men. Augustus is very ami- 
able, too, and, when known, shows much good 
sense." On another occasion, " Dear Ferdinand 
came and sat near me and talked so dearly and 
sensibly. I do so love him. Dear Augustus sat 
near me and talked with me, and he is also a dear 
good young man, and is very handsome." She 
could not quite decide which was the handsomer 
of the two. On the whole, she concluded, " I think 
Ferdinand handsomer than Augustus, his eyes are 
so beautiful, and he has such a lively clever expres- 
sion; hoth have such a sweet expression; Ferdi- 
nand has something quite beautiful in his expres- 
sion when he speaks and smiles, and he is so good." 
However, it was perhaps best to say that they 
were " both very handsome and very dear J" ^ But 
shortly afterwards two more cousins arrived, who 
threw all the rest into the shade. These were the 

t Girlhood, I, 78, 82. 2 Ibid., I, 160-3. 



CHILDHOOD 51 

Princes Ernest and Albert, sons of her mother's 
eldest brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg. This 
time the Princess was more particular in her ob- 
servations. " Ernest," she remarked, " is as tall as 
Ferdinand and Augustus; he has dark hair, and 
fine dark eyes and eyebrows, but the nose and 
mouth are not good; he has a most kind, honest 
and intelligent expression in his countenance, and 
has a very good figure. Albert, who is just as tall 
as Ernest but stouter, is extremely handsome; his 
hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are 
large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a 
very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm 
of his countenance is his expression, which is most 
delightful; c'est a la fois full of goodness and 
sweetness, and very clever and intelligent." " Both 
my cousins," she added, "are so kind and good; 
they are much more formes and men of the world 
than Augustus ; they speak English very well, and 
I speak it with them. Ernest will be 18 years old 
on the 21st of June, and Albert 17 on the 26th 
of August. Dear Uncle Ernest made me the 
present of a most delightful Lory, which is so 
tame that it remains on your hand and you may 
put your finger into its beak, or do anything with 
it, without its ever attempting to bite. It is larger 
than Mamma's grey parrot." A little later, /'I 



52 QUEEN VICTORIA 

sat between my dear cousins on the sofa and we 
looked at drawings. They both draw very well, 
particularly Albert, and are both exceedingly 
fond of music; they play very nicely on the piano. 
The more I see them the more I am delighted with 
them, and the more I love them. ... It is de- 
lightful to be with them ; they are so fond of being 
occupied too; they are quite an example for any 
young person." When, after a stay of three weeks, 
the time came for the young men and their father 
to return to Germany, the moment of parting was 
a melancholy one. " It was our last happy happy 
breakfast, with this dear Uncle and those dearest 
beloved cousins, whom I do love so very very 
dearly; much more dearly than any other cousins 
in the world. Dearly as I love Ferdinand, and 
also good Augustus, I love Ernest and Albert 
more than them, oh yes, much more. . . . They 
have both learnt a good deal, and are very clever, 
naturally clever, particularly Albert, who is the 
most reflecting of the two, and they like very much 
talking about serious and instructive things and 
yet are so very very merry and gay and happy, 
like young people ought to be ; Albert always used 
to have some fun and some clever witty answer at 
breakfast and everywhere; he used to play and 
fondle Dash so funnily too. . . . Dearest Albert 



CHILDHOOD 53 

was playing on the piano when I came down. At 
11 dear Uncle, my dearest beloved cousins, and 
Charles, left us, accompanied by Count Kolowrat. 
I embraced both my dearest cousins most warmly, 
as also my dear Uncle. I cried bitterly, very bit- 
terly." ^ The Princes shared her ecstasies and her 
italics between them; but it is clear enough where 
her secret preference lay. " Particularly Albert "! 
She was just seventeen; and deep was the impres- 
sion left upon that budding organism by the young 
man's charm and goodness and accomplishments, 
and his large blue eyes and beautiful nose, and his 
sweet mouth and fine teeth. 

IV 

King William could not away with his sister-in- 
law, and the Duchess fully returned his antipathy. 
Without considerable tact and considerable for- 
bearance their relative positions were well calcu- 
lated to cause ill-feeling; and there was very little 
tact in the composition of the Duchess, and no 
forbearance at all in that of his Majesty. A 
bursting, bubbling old gentleman, with quarter- 
deck gestures, round rolling eyes, and a head like 
a pineapple, his sudden elevation to the throne 
after fifty-six years of utter insignificance had al- 

1 Girlhood, I, 167-^1. 



54 QUEEN VICTORIA 

most sent him crazy. His natural exuberance com- 
pletely got the best of him ; he rushed about doing 
preposterous things in an extraordinary manner, 
spreading amusement and terror in every direc- 
tion, and talking all the time. His tongue was 
decidedly Hanoverian, with its repetitions, its 
catchwords — " That's quite another thing! That's 
quite another thing!" — its rattling indomitability, 
its loud indiscreetness. His speeches, made re- 
peatedly at the most inopportune junctures, and 
filled pell-mell with all the fancies and furies that 
happened at the moment to be whisking about in 
his head, were the consternation of Ministers. He 
was one part blackguard, people said, and three 
parts buffoon; but those who knew him better 
could not help liking him — he meant well; and 
he was really good-humoured and kind-hearted, if 
you took him the right way. If you took him the 
wrong way, however, you must look out for 
squalls, as the Duchess of Kent discovered. 

She had no notion of how to deal with him — 
could not understand him in the least. Occupied 
with her own position, her own responsibilities, her 
duty, and her daughter, she had no attention to 
spare for the peppery susceptibilities of a foolish, 
disreputable old man. She was the mother of the 
heiress of England; and it was for him to recog- 



CHILDHOOD 55 

nise the fact — to put her at once upon a proper 
footing — to give her the precedence of a dowager 
Princess of Wales, with a large annuity from the 
privy purse/ It did not occur to her that such 
pretensions might be galling to a king who had 
no legitimate child of his own, and who yet had 
not altogether abandoned the hope of having one. 
She pressed on, with bulky vigour, along the 
course she had laid out. Sir John Conroy, an 
Irishman with no judgment and a great deal of 
self-importance, was her intimate counsellor, and 
egged her on. It was advisable that Victoria 
should become acquainted vnth the various dis- 
tricts of England, and through several summers 
a succession of tours — in the West, in the Mid- 
lands, in Wales — were arranged for her. The 
intention of the plan was excellent, but its execu- 
tion was unfortunate. The journeys, advertised 
in the Press, attracting enthusiastic crowds, and 
involving official receptions, took on the air of 
royal progresses. Addresses were presented by 
loyal citizens; the delighted Duchess, swelling in 
sweeping feathers and almost obliterating the 
diminutive Princess, read aloud, in her German 
accent, gracious replies prepared beforehand by 
Sir John, who, bustling and ridiculous, seemed to 

1 Greville, II, 195-6. 



56 QUEEN VICTORIA 

be mingling the roles of major-domo and Prime 
Minister. Naturally the King fumed over his 
newspaper at Windsor. " That woman is a nui- 
sance!" he exclaimed. Poor Queen Adelaide, 
amiable though disappointed, did her best to 
smooth things down, changed the subject, and 
wrote affectionate letters to Victoria; but it was 
useless. News arrived that the Duchess of Kent, 
sailing in the Solent, had insisted that whenever 
her yacht appeared it should be received by royal 
salutes from all the men-of-war and all the forts. 
The King declared that these continual poppings 
must cease; the Premier and the First Lord of the 
Admiralty were consulted; and they wrote pri- 
vately to the Duchess, begging her to waive her 
rights. But she would not hear of it; Sir John 
Conroy was adamant. " As her Royal Highness's 
confidential adviser/^ he said, " I cannot recom- 
mend her to give way on this point." Eventually 
the King, in a great state of excitement, issued a 
special Order in Council, prohibiting the firing of 
royal salutes to any ships except those which car- 
ried the reigning sovereign or his consort on 
board.^ 

When King William quarrelled with his Whig 
Ministers the situation grew still more embittered, 

iGreville, III, 321, 324. 



CHILDHOOD 57 

for now the Duchess, in addition to her other short- 
comings, was the poHtical partisan of his enemies. 
In 1836 he made an attempt to prepare the ground 
for a match between the Princess Victoria and one 
of the sons of the Prince of Orange, and at the 
same time did his best to prevent the visit of the 
young Coburg princes to Kensington. He failed 
in both these objects; and the only result of his 
efforts was to raise the anger of the King of the 
Belgians, who, forgetting for a moment his royal 
reserve, addressed an indignant letter on the sub- 
ject to his niece. " I am really astonished," he 
wrote, " at the conduct of your old Uncle the 
King; this invitation of the Prince of Orange and 
his sons, this forcing him on others, is very ex- 
traordinary. . . . Not later than yesterday I got 
a half-official communication from England, insin- 
uating that it would be highly desirable that the 
visit of your relatives should not take place this 
year — qu'en dites-vous? The relations of the 
Queen and the King, therefore, to the God-knows- 
what degree, are to come in shoals and rule the 
land, when your relations are to be forbidden the 
country, and that when, as you know, the whole of 
your relations have ever been very dutiful and 
kind to the "King. Really and truly I never heard 
or saw anything like it, and I hope it will a Uttle 



58 QUEEN VICTORIA 

rouse your spirit; now that slavery is even abol- 
ished in the British Colonies, I do not compre- 
hend why your lot alone should he to he kept a 
white little slavey in England, for the pleasure of 
the Court, who never bought you, as I am not 
aware of their ever having gone to any expense 
on that head, or the King's ever having spent a 
sixpence for your existence. . . . Oh, consistency 
and political or other honesty, where must one 
look for you! " ^ 

Shortly afterwards King Leopold came to Eng- 
land himself, and his reception was as cold at 
Windsor as it was warm at Kensington. " To hear 
dear Uncle speak on any subject," the Princess 
wrote in her diary, " is like reading a highly in- 
structive book; his conversation is so enlightened, 
so clear. He is universally admitted to be one of 
the first politicians now extant. He speaks so 
mildly, yet firmly and impartially, about politics. 
Uncle tells me that Belgium is quite a pattern for 
its organisation, its industry, and prosperity; the 
finances are in the greatest perfection. Uncle is 
so beloved and revered by his Belgian subjects, 
that it must be a great compensation for all his 
extreme trouble." ^ But her other uncle by no 
means shared her sentiments. He could not, he 

I Letters, I, 47-€. 2 Girlhood, I, 168. 



CHILDHOOD 59 

said, put up with a water-drinker; and King Leo- 
pold would touch no wine. " What's that you're 
drinking, sir?" he asked him one day at dinner. 
"Water, sir." "God damn it, sir!" was the re- 
joinder. "Why don't you drink wine? I never 
allow anybody to drink water at my table." ^ 

It was clear that before very long there would 
be a great explosion; and in the hot days of Au- 
gust it came. The Duchess and the Princess had 
gone down to stay at Windsor for the King's 
birthday party, and the King himself, who was in 
London for the day to prorogue Parliament, paid 
a visit at Kensington Palace in their absence. 
There he found that the Duchess had just appro- 
priated, against his express orders, a suite of sev- 
enteen apartments for her own use. He was ex- 
tremely angry, and, when he returned to Windsor, 
after greeting the Princess with affection, he pub- 
licly rebuked the Duchess for what she had done. 
But this was little to what followed. On the next 
day was the birthday banquet; there were a hun- 
dred guests; the Duchess of Kent sat on the 
King's right hand, and the Princess Victoria op- 
posite. At the end of the dinner, in reply to the 
toast of the King's health, he rose, and, in a long, 
loud, passionate speech, poured out the vials of 

iGreville, III, 377. 



60 QUEEN VICTORIA 

his wrath upon the Duchess. She had, he declared, 
insulted him — grossly and continually; she had 
kept the Princess away from him in the most im- 
proper manner; she was surrounded by evil ad- 
visers, and was incompetent to act with propriety 
in the high station which she filled; but he would 
bear it no longer; he would have her to know he 
was King; he was determined that his authority 
should be respected; henceforward the Princess 
should attend at every Court function with the 
utmost regularity; and he hoped to God that his 
life might be spared for six months longer, so that 
the calamity of a regency might be avoided, and 
the functions of the Crown pass directly to the 
heiress-presumptive instead of into the hands of 
the " person now near him," upon whose conduct 
and capacity no reliance whatever could be placed. 
The flood of vituperation rushed on for what 
seemed an interminable period, while the Queen 
blushed scarlet, the Princess burst into tears, and 
the hundred guests sat aghast. The Duchess said 
not a word until the tirade was over and the com- 
pany had retired; then in a tornado of rage and 
mortification, she called for her carriage and an- 
nounced her immediate return to Kensington. It 
was only with the utmost difficulty that some show 
of a reconciliation was patched up, and the out- 



CHILDHOOD 61 

raged lady was prevailed upon to put off her de- 
parture till the morrow.^ 

Her troubles, however, were not over when she 
had shaken the dust of Windsor « from her feet. 
In her own household she was pursued by bitter- 
ness and vexation of spirit. The apartments at 
Kensington were seething with subdued disaffec- 
tion, with jealousies and animosities virulently in- 
tensified by long years of propinquity and spite. 

There was a deadly feud between Sir John 
Conroy and Baroness Lehzen. But that was not 
all. The Duchess had grown too fond of her 
Major-Domo. There were familiarities, and one 
day the Princess Victoria discovered the fact. She 
confided what she had seen to the Baroness, and 
to the Baroness's beloved ally, Madame de Spath. 
Unfortunately, Madame de Spath could not hold 
her tongue, and was actually foolish enough to 
reprove the Duchess; whereupon she was instantly 
dismissed. It was not so easy to get rid of the 
Baroness. That lady, prudent and reserved, 
maintained an irreproachable demeanour. Her 
position was strongly entrenched; she had man- 
aged to secure the support of the King; and Sir 
John found that he could do nothing against her. 
But henceforward the household was divided into 

iGreville, III, 374-6. 



62 QUEEN VICTORIA 

two camps/ The Duchess supported Sir John 
with all the abundance of her authority; but the 
Baroness, too, had an adherent who could not be 
neglected. The Princess Victoria said nothing, 
but she had been much attached to Madame de 
Spath, and she adored her Lehzen. The Duchess 
knew only too well that in this horrid embroilment 
her daughter was against her. Chagrin, annoy- 
ance, moral reprobation, tossed her to and fro. 
She did her best to console herself with Sir John's 
affectionate loquacity, or with the sharp remarks 
of Lady Flora Hastings, one of her maids of hon- 
our, who had no love for the Baroness. The sub- 
ject lent itself to satu'c; for the pastor's daughter, 
with all her airs of stiff superiority, had habits 
which betrayed her origin. Her passion for carra- 
way seeds, for instance, was uncontrollable. Little 
bags of them came over to her from Hanover, and 
she sprinkled them on her bread and butter, her 

iGreville, IV, 21; and August 15, 1839 (unpublished). "The 
cause of the Queen's alienation from the Duchess and hatred of 
Conroy, the Duke [of Wellington] said, was unquestionably owing 
to her having witnessed some familiarities between them. What 
she had seen she repeated to Baroness Spaeth, and Spaeth not 
only did not hold her tongue, but (he thinks) remonstrated with 
the Duchess herself on the subject. The consequence was that 
they got rid of Spaeth, and they would have got rid of Lehzen, 
too, if they had been able, but Lehzen, who knew very well what 
was going on, was prudent enough not to commit herself, and 
she was, besides, powerfully protected by George IV and 
William IV, so that they did not dare to attempt to expel her." 



CHILDHOOD 63 

cabbage, and even her roast beef. Lady Flora 
could not resist a caustic observation; it was re- 
peated to the Baroness, who pursed her hps in 
fury; and so the mischief grew/ 



The King had prayed that he might live till his 
niece was of age; and a few days before her eigh- 
teenth birthday — the date of her legal majority — 
a sudden attack of illness very nearly carried him 
off. He recovered, however, and the Princess was 
able to go through her birthday festivities — a state 
ball and a drawing-room — with unperturbed en- 
joyment. " Count Zichy," she noted in her diary, 
" is very good-looking in uniform, but not in plain 
clothes. Count Waldstein looks remarkably well 
in his pretty Hungarian uniform." " With the 
latter young gentleman she wished to dance, but 
there was an insurmountable difficulty. " He 
could not dance quadrilles, and, as in my station I 
unfortunately cannot valse and gallop, I could not 
dance with him." ^ Her birthday present from the 
King was of a pleasing nature, but it led to a 
painful domestic scene. In spite of the anger of 
her Belgian uncle, she had remained upon good 

iGreville, IV, 21; Crawford, 128-9. 2 airlhood, I, 192-3. 

3 Ibid., I, 191. 



64} QUEEN VICTORIA 

terms with her English one. He had always been 
very kind to her, and the fact that he had quar- 
relled with her mother did not appear to be a rea- 
son for disliking him. He was, she said, " odd, 
very odd and singular," but " his intentions were 
often ill interpreted." ^ He now wrote* her a let- 
ter, offering her an allowance of £10,000 a year, 
which he proposed should be at her own disposal, 
and independent of her mother. Lord Conyng- 
ham, the Lord Chamberlain, was instructed to 
deliver the letter into the Princess's own hands. 
When he arrived at Kensington, he was ushered 
into the presence of the Duchess and the Princess, 
and, when he produced the letter, the Duchess put 
out her hand to take it. Lord Conyngham begged 
her Royal Highness's pardon, and repeated the 
King's commands. Thereupon the Duchess drew 
back, and the Princess took the letter. She imme- 
diately wrote to her uncle, accepting his kind pro- 
posal. The Duchess was much displeased; £4000 
a year, she said, would be quite enough for Vic- 
toria; as for the remaining £6000, it would be only 
proper that she should have that herself.^ 

King William had thrown off his illness, and 
returned to his normal life. Once more the royal 
circle at Windsor — their Majesties, the elder Prin- 

1 Girlhood, I, 194. 2 Greville, III, 407-8. 



CHILDHOOD 65 

cesses, and some unfortunate Ambassadress or 
Minister's wife — might be seen ranged for hours 
round a mahogany table, while the Queen netted 
a purse, and the King slept, occasionally waking 
from his slumbers to observe " Exactly so, ma'am, 
exactly so! " ^ But this recovery was of short dura- 
tion. The old man suddenly collapsed; with no 
specific symptoms besides an extreme weakness, he 
yet showed no power of rallying; and it was clear 
to everyone that his death was now close at hand. 
All eyes, all thoughts, turned towards the Prin- 
cess Victoria; but she still remained, shut away in 
the seclusion of Kensington, a small, unknown 
figure, lost in the large shadow of her mother's 
domination. The preceding year had in fact 
been an important one in her development. The 
soft tendrils of her mind had for the first time be- 
gun to stretch out towards unchildish things. In 
this King Leopold encouraged her. After his re- 
turn to Brussels, he had resumed his correspond- 
ence in a more serious strain; he discussed the de- 
tails of foreign politics ; he laid down the duties of 
kingship; he pointed out the iniquitous foolishness 
of the newspaper press. On the latter subject, 
indeed, he wrote with some asperity. " If all the 
editors," he said, " of the papers in the countries 

iCreevey, II, 262. 



66 QUEEN VICTORIA 

where the hberty of the press exists were to be 
assembled, we should have a crew to which you 
would not confide a dog that you would value, 
still less your honour and reputation." ^ On the 
functions of a monarch, his viev/s were unexcep- 
tionable. " The business of the highest in a State," 
he wrote, " is certainly, in my opinion, to act with 
great impartiality and a spirit of justice for the 
good of all." ^ At the same time the Princess's 
tastes were opening out. Though she was still 
passionately devoted to riding and dancing, she 
now began to have a genuine love of music as well, 
and to drink in the roulades and arias of the Ital- 
ian opera with high enthusiasm. She even enjoyed 
reading poetry — at any rate, the poetry of Sir 
Walter Scott.' 

When King Leopold learnt that King William's 
death was approaching, he wrote several long let- 
ters of excellent advice to his niece. " In every 
letter I shall write to you," he said, " I mean to 
repeat to you, as a fundamental rule, to he cour- 
ageous, firm, and honest, as you have been till 
now." For the rest, in the crisis that was ap- 
proaching, she was not to be alarmed, but to trust 
in her " good natural sense and the truth " of her 
character; she was to do nothing in a hurry; to 

1 Letters, I, 53. 2 Letters, I, 61. 3 Girlhood, I, 175. 



CHILDHOOD 67 

hurt no one's amour-propre^ and to continue her 
confidence in the Whig administration.^ Not con- 
tent with letters, however, King Leopold deter- 
mined that the Princess should not lack personal 
guidance, and sent over to her aid the trusted 
friend whom, twenty years before, he had taken to 
his heart by the death-bed at Claremont. Thus, 
once again, as if in accordance with some pre- 
ordained destiny, the figure of Stockmar is discern- 
ible — inevitably present at a momentous hour. 

On June 18, the King was visibly sinking. The 
Archbishop of Canterbury was by his side, with 
all the comforts of the church. Nor did the holy 
words fall upon a rebellious spirit ; for many years 
his Majesty had been a devout believer. " When I 
was a young* man," he once explained at a public 
banquet, " as well as I can remember, I beheved 
in nothing but pleasure and folly — nothing at all. 
But when I went to sea, got into a gale, and saw 
the wonders of the mighty deep, then I believed; 
and I have been a sincere Christian ever since." ^ 
It was the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, 
and the dying man remembered it. He should be 
glad to live, he said, over that day ; he would never 
see another sunset. " I hope your Majesty may 
live to see many," said Dr. Chambers. " Oh! that's 

1 Letters, I, 79-1. 2 Torrens, 419. 



68 QUEEN VICTORIA 

quite another thing, that's quite another thing," 
was the answer/ One other sunset he did live to 
see ; and he died in the early hours of the following 
morning. It was on June 20, 1837. 

When all was over, the Archbishop and the 
Lord Chamberlain ordered a carriage, and drove 
post-haste from Windsor to Kensington. They 
arrived at the Palace at five o'clock, and it was 
only with considerable difficulty that they gained 
admittance." At six the Duchess woke up her 
daughter, and told her that the Archbishop of 
Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were there, and 
wished to see her. She got out of bed, put on her 
dressing-gown, and went, alone, into the room 
where the messengers were standing. Lord Con- 
yngham fell on his knees, and officially announced 
the death of the King ; the Archbishop added some 
personal details. Looking at the bending, mur- 
muring dignitaries before her, she knew that she 
was Queen of England. " Since it has pleased 
Providence," she wrote that day in her journal, 
" to place me in this station, I shall do my utmost 
to fulfil my duty towards my country; I am veiy 
young, and perhaps in many, though not in all 
things, inexperienced, but I am sure, that very 
few have more real good will and more real desire 

iHuish, 686. 2 Wynn, 281. 



CHILDHOOD 69 

to do what is fit and right than I have." ^ But 
there was scant time for resolutions and reflec- 
tions. At once, affairs were thick upon her. 
Stockmar came to breakfast, and gave some good 
advice. She wrote a letter to her uncle Leopold, 
and a hurried note to her sister Feodora. A letter 
came from the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, 
announcing his approaching arrival. He came at 
nine, in full court dress, and kissed her hand. She 
saw him alone, and repeated to nim the lesson 
which, no doubt, the faithful Stockmar had taught 
her at breakfast. " It has long been my intention 
to retain your Lordship and the rest of the pres- 
ent Ministrj'^ at the head of affairs ; " whereupon 
Lord Melbourne again kissed her hand and shortly 
after left her. She then wrote a letter of con- 
dolence to Queen Adelaide. At eleven, Lord Mel- 
bourne came again; and at half-past eleven she 
went downstairs into the red saloon to hold her 
first Council." The great assembly of lords and 
notables, bishops, generals, and Ministers of State, 
saw the doors thrown open and a very short, very 
slim girl in deep plain mourning come into the 
room alone and move forward to her seat with ex- 
traordinary dignity and grace; they saw a coun- 
tenance, not beautiful, but prepossessing — fair 

1 Girlhood, I, 195-6. 2 Ibid., I, 196-7. 



70 QUEEN VICTORIA 

hair, blue prominent eyes, a small curved nose, 
an open mouth revealing the upper teeth, a 
tiny chin, a clear complexion, and, over all, the 
strangely mingled signs of innocence, of gravity, 
of youth, and of composure; they heard a high 
unwavering voice reading aloud with perfect clar- 
ity ; and then, the ceremony was over, they saw the 
small figure rise and, with the same consummate 
grace, the same amazing dignity, pass out from 
among them, as she had come in, alone.^ 

1 Greville, III, 414-6. 



CHAPTER III 

LORD MELBOURNE 
I 

The new queen was almost entirely unknown to 
her subjects. In her public appearances her 
mother had invariably dominated the scene. Her 
private life had been that of a novice in a convent : 
hardly a human being from the outside world had 
ever spoken to her; and no human being at all, 
except her mother and the Baroness Lehzen, had 
ever been alone with her in a room. Thus it was 
not only the public at large that was in ignorance 
of everything concerning her; the inner circles of 
statesmen and officials and high-born ladies were 
equally in the dark.^ When she suddenly emerged 
from this deep obscurity, the impression that she 
created was immediate and profound. Her bear- 
ing at her first Council filled the whole gathering 
with astonishment and admiration; the Duke of 
Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, even the savage 
Croker, even the cold and caustic Greville — all 
were completely carried away. Everything that 

iGreviUe, III, 411. 

71 



72 QUEEN VICTORIA 

was reported of her subsequent proceedings seemed 
to be of no less happy augury. Her perceptions 
were quick, her decisions were sensible, her lan- 
guage was discreet ; she performed her royal duties 
with extraordinary facility/ Among the outside 
public there was a great wave of enthusiasm. Sen- 
timent and romance were coming into fashion ; and 
the spectacle of the little girl-queen, innocent, 
modest, with fair hair and pink cheeks, driving 
through her capital, filled the hearts of the behold- 
ers with raptures of affectionate loyalty. What, 
above all, struck everybody with overwhelming 
force was the contrast between Queen Victoria 
and her uncles. The nasty old men, debauched 
and selfish, pig-headed and ridiculous, with their 
perpetual burden of debts, confusions, and disrep- 
utabilities — they had vanished like the snows of 
winter, and here at last, crowned and radiant, was 
the spring. Lord John Russell, in an elaborate 
oration, gave voice to the general sentiment. He 
hoped that Victoria might prove an Elizabeth 
without her tyranny, an Anne without her weak- 
ness. He asked England to pray that the illus- 
trious Princess who had just ascended the throne 
with the purest intentions and the justest desires 
might see slavery abolished, crime diminished, and 

iGreville, IV, 7, 9, 14-15. 



LORD MELBOURNE 73 

education improved. He trusted that her people 
would henceforward derive their strength, their 
conduct, and their loyalty from enlightened reli- 
gious and moral principles, and that, so fortified, 
the reign of Victoria might prove celebrated 
to posterity and to all the nations of the 
earth/ 

Very soon, however, there were signs that the 
future might turn out to be not quite so simple 
and roseate as a delighted public dreamed. The 
" illustrious Princess " might perhaps, after all, 
have something within her which squared ill with 
the easy vision of a well-conducted heroine in an 
edifying story-book. The purest intentions and 
the justest desires? No doubt; but was that all? 
To those who watched closely, for instance, there 
might be something ominous in the curious con- 
tour of that little mouth. When, after her first 
Council, she crossed the ante-room and found her 
mother waiting for her, she said, " And now. Mam- 
ma, am I really and truly Queen? " " You see, 
my dear, that it is so." " Then, dear Mamma, I 
hope you will grant me the first request I make to 
you, as Queen. Let me be by myself for an 
hour." ^ For an hour she remained in solitude. 
Then she reappeared, and gave a significant order: 

iWalpole, I, 284. 2 Crawford, 156-7. 



74 QUEEN VICTORIA 

her bed was to be moved out of her mother's room. 
It was the doom of the Duchess of Kent. The 
long years of waiting were over at last; the mo- 
ment of a lifetime had come; her daughter was 
Queen of England ; and that very moment brought 
her own annihilation. She found herself, abso- 
lutely and irretrievably, shut off from every ves- 
tige of influence, of confidence, of power. She 
was surrounded, indeed, by all the outward signs 
of respect and consideration; but that only made 
the inward truth of her position the more intoler- 
able. Through the mingled formalities of Court 
etiquette and filial duty, she could never penetrate 
to Victoria. She was unable to conceal her disap- 
pointment and her rage. " II n'y a plus d'avenir 
pour moi," she exclaimed to Madame de Lieven; 
" je ne suis plus rien." For eighteen years, she 
said, this child had been the sole object of her ex- 
istence, of her thoughts, her hopes, and now — no! 
she would not be comforted, she had lost every- 
thing, she was to the last degree unhappy. "^ Sail- 
ing, so gallantly and so pertinaciously, through the 
buffeting storms of life, the stately vessel, with 
sails still swelling and pennons fljnng, had put into 
harbour at last; to find there nothing — a land of 
bleak desolation. 

iGreville, IV, 16. 



LORD MELBOURNE 75 

Within a month of the accession, the reahties of 
the new situation assumed a visible shape. The 
whole royal household moved from Kensington to 
Buckingham Palace, and, in the new abode, the 
Duchess of Kent was given a suite of apartments 
entirely separate from the Queen's. By Victoria 
herself the change was welcomed, though, at the 
moment of departure, she could afford to be senti- 
mental. " Though I rejoice to go into B. P. for 
many reasons," she wrote in her diary, " it is not 
without feelings of regret that I shall bid adieu 
for ever to this my birthplace, where I have been 
born and bred, and to which I am really at- 
tached ! " Her memory lingered for a moment 
over visions of the past: her sister's wedding, pleas- 
ant balls and delicious concerts . . . and there 
were other recollections. " I have gone through 
painful and disagreeable scenes here, 'tis true," she 
concluded, " but still I am fond of the poor old 
palace." ^ 

At the same time she took another decided step. 
She had determined that she would see no more 
of Sir John Conroy. She rewarded his past 
services with liberality: he was given a baronetcy 
and a pension of ,£3000 a year; he remained a 
member of the Duchess's household, but his per- 

1 Girlhood, 1, 210-1. 



76 QUEEN VICTORIA 

sonal intercourse with the Queen came to an abrupt 
conclusion/ 

II 

It was clear that these interior changes — what- 
ever else they might betoken — marked the triumph 
of one person — the Baroness Lehzen. The pas- 
tor's daughter observed the ruin of her enemies. 
Discreet and victorious, she remained in possession 
of the field. More closely than ever did she cleave 
to the side of her mistress, her pupil, and her 
friend; and in the recesses of the palace her mys- 
terious figure was at once invisible and omnipres- 
ent. When the Queen's Ministers came in at one 
door, the Baroness went out by another; when they 
retired, she immediately returned." Nobody knew 
— nobody ever will know — the precise extent and 
the precise nature of her influence. She herself 
declared that she never discussed public affairs 
with the Queen, that she was concerned with pri- 
vate matters only — with private letters and the 
details of private life.^ Certainly her hand is 
everywhere discernible in Victoria's early corre- 
spondence. The Journal is written in the style of 
a child ; the Letters are not so simple ; they are the 

1 Greville, IV, 15. 2 md., IV, 21-2. 

aStockmar, 322-3; Maxwell, 159-60. 



LORDMELBOURNE 77 

work of a child, rearranged — with the minimum of 
alteration, no doubt, and yet perceptibly — by a 
governess. And the governess was no fool: nar- 
row, jealous, provincial, she might be; but she was 
an acute and vigorous woman, who had gained by 
a peculiar insight, a peculiar ascendancy. That 
ascendancy she meant to keep. No doubt it was 
true that technically she took no part in public 
business; but the distinction between what is pub- 
lic and what is private is always a subtle one; and 
in the case of a reigning sovereign — as the next 
few years were to show — it is often imaginary. 
Considering all things — the characters of the per- 
sons, and the character of the times — it was some- 
thing more than a mere matter of private interest 
that the bedroom of Baroness Lehzen at Bucking- 
ham Palace should have been next door to the bed- 
room of the Queen. 

But the influence wielded by the Baroness, su- 
preme as it seemed within its own sphere, was not 
unlimited; there were other forces at work. For 
one thing, the faithful Stockmar had taken up his 
residence in the palace. During the twenty years 
which had elapsed since the death of the Princess 
Charlotte, his experiences had been varied and re- 
markable. The unknown counsellor of a disap- 
pointed princeling had gradually risen to a posi- 



78 QUEEN VICTORIA 

tion of European importance. His devotion to his 
master had been not only whole-hearted but cau- 
tious and wise. It was Stockmar's advice that had 
kept Prince Leopold in England during the criti- 
cal years which followed his wife's death, and had 
thus secured to him the essential requisite of a 
point d'appui in the country of his adoption.^ It 
was Stockmar's discretion which had smoothed 
over the embarrassments surrounding the Prince's 
acceptance and rejection of the Greek crown. It 
was Stockmar who had induced the Prince to be- 
come the constitutional Sovereign of Belgium.^ 
Above all, it was Stockmar's tact, honesty, and 
diplomatic skill which, through a long series of 
arduous and complicated negotiations, had led to 
the guarantee of Belgian neutrality by the Great 
Powers.^ His labours had been rewarded by a 
German barony and by the complete confidence of 
King Leopold. Nor was it only in Brussels that 
he was treated with respect and listened to with 
attention. The statesmen who governed England 
— Lord Grey, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, 
Lord Melbourne — ^had learnt to put a high value 
upon his probity and his intelligence. " He is 
one of the cleverest fellows I ever saw," said Lord 

1 stockmar, 109-10. 2 [bid., 165-6. 

3 Ibid., chaps, viii, ix, x, and xi. 



LORD MELBOURNE 79 

Melbourne — " the most discreet man, the most 
well- judging, and most cool man." ^ And Lord 
Palmerston cited Baron Stockmar as the only 
absolutely disinterested man he had come across in 
life.^ At last he was able to retire to Coburg, and 
to enjoy for a few years the society of the wife and 
children whom his labours in the service of his 
master had hitherto only allowed him to visit at 
long intervals for a month or two at a time. But 
in 1836 he had been again entrusted with an im- 
portant negotiation, which he had brought to a 
successful conclusion in the marriage of Prince 
Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, a nephew of King 
Leopold's, with Queen Maria II of Portugal.^ 
The House of Coburg was beginning to spread 
over Europe; and the establishment of the Baron 
at Buckingham Palace in 1837 was to be the pre- 
lude of another and a more momentous advance.* 
King Leopold and his counsellor provide in their 
careers an example of the curious diversity of 
human ambitions. The desires of man are won- 
derfully various ; but no less various are the means 
by which those desires may reach satisfaction: and 
so the work of the world gets done. The correct 
mind of Leopold craved for the whole apparatus 

1 Girlhood, II, 303. 3 ibid., chap, xv, pt. 2. 

2 Stockmar, 324 * Ihid., chap. xvii. 



80 QUEENVICTORIA 

of royalty. Mere power would have held no at- 
tractions for him; he must be an actual king — the 
crowned head of a people. It was not enough to 
do ; it was essential also to be recognised ; anything 
else would not be fitting. The greatness that he 
dreamt of was surrounded by every appropriate 
circumstance. To be a Majesty, to be a cousin of 
Sovereigns, to marry a Bourbon for diplomatic 
ends, to correspond with the Queen of England, to 
be very stiff and very punctual, to found a 
dynasty, to bore ambassadresses into fits, to live, 
on the highest pinnacle, an exemplary life devoted 
to the public service — such were his objects, and 
such, in fact, were his achievements. The " Mar- 
quis Peu-a-peu," as George IV called him,^ had 
what he wanted. But this would never have been 
the case if it had not happened that the ambition 
of Stockmar took a form exactly complementary 
to his own. The sovereignty that the Baron sought 
for was by no means obvious. The satisfaction 
of his essential being lay in obscurity, in invisibility 
— in passing, unobserved, through a hidden en- 
trance, into the very central chamber of power, 
and in sitting there, quietly, pulling the subtle 
strings that set the wheels of the whole world in 
motion. A very few people, in very high places, 

1 stein, VI, 932. 



LORD MELBOURNE 81 

and exceptionally well-informed, knew that Baron 
Stockmar was a most important person: that was 
enough. The fortunes of the master and the serv- 
ant, intimately interacting, rose together. The 
Baron's secret skill had given Leopold his unex- 
ceptionable kingdom; and Leopold, in his turn, as 
time went on, was able to furnish the Baron with 
more and more keys to more and more back doors. 
Stockmar took up his abode in the Palace partly 
as the emissary of King Leopold, but more par- 
ticularly as the friend and adviser of a queen who 
was almost a child, and who, no doubt, would be 
much in need of advice and friendship. For it 
would be a mistake to suppose that either of these 
two men was actuated by a vulgar selfishness. The 
King, indeed, was very well aware on which side 
his bread was buttered ; during an adventurous and 
chequered life he had acquired a shrewd knowl- 
edge of the world's workings; and he was ready 
enough to use that knowledge to strengthen his 
position and to spread his influence. But then, 
the firmer his position and the wider his influence, 
the better for Europe; of that he was quite cer- 
tain. And besides, he was a constitutional mon- 
arch; and it would be highly indecorous in a con- 
stitutional monarch to have any aims that were 
low or personal. As for Stockmar, the disinter- 



82 QUEEN VICTORIA 

estedness which Palmerston had noted was un- 
doubtedly a basic element in his character. The 
ordinary schemer is always an optimist ; and Stock- 
mar, racked by dyspepsia and haunted by gloomy 
forebodings, was a constitutionally melancholy 
man. A schemer, no doubt, he was; but he 
schemed distrustfully, splenetically, to do good. 
To do good! What nobler end could a man 
scheme for ? Yet it is perilous to scheme at all. 
With Lehzen to supervise every detail of her 
conduct, with Stockmar in the next room, so full 
of wisdom and experience of affairs, with her 
Uncle Leopold's letters, too, pouring out so con- 
stantly their stream of encouragements, general 
reflections, and highly valuable tips, Victoria, even 
had she been without other guidance, would have 
stood in no lack of private counsellors. But other 
guidance she had; for all these influences paled 
before a new star, of the first magnitude, which, 
rising suddenly upon her horizon, immediately 
dominated her life. 

Ill 
William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, was fifty- 
eight years of age, and had been for the last three 
years Prime Minister of England. In every out- 
ward respect he was one of the most fortunate 




LOPtD MELBOURNE. 
From the Portrait by Sir Edwin Lamlseer, R.A. 



LORD MELBOURNE 83 

of mankind. He had been born into the midst of 
riches, brilliance, and power. His mother, fasci- 
nating and intelligent, had been a great Whig 
hostess, and he had been bred up as a member of 
that radiant society which, during the last quarter 
of the eighteenth century, concentrated within it- 
self the ultimate perfections of a hundred years 
of triumphant aristocracy. Nature had given him 
beauty and brains; the unexpected death of an 
elder brother brought him wealth, a peerage, and 
the possibility of high advancement. Within that 
charmed cu'cle, whatever one's personal disabili- 
ties, it was difficult to fail; and to him, with all 
his advantages, success was well-nigh unavoidable. 
With little effort, he attained political eminence. 
On the triumph of the Whigs he became one of 
the leading members of the Government; and 
when Lord Grey retired from the premiership he 
quietly stepped into the vacant place. Nor was 
it only in the visible signs of fortune that Fate 
had been kind to him. Bound to succeed, and to 
succeed easily, he was gifted with so fine a nature 
that his success became him. His mind, at once 
supple and copious, his temperament, at once calm 
and sensitive, enabled him not merely to work, but 
to live with perfect facihty and with the grace of 
strength. In society he was a notable talker, a 



84f QUEEN VICTORIA 

captivating companion, a charming man. If one 
looked deeper, one saw at once that he was not 
ordinary, that the piquancies of his conversation 
and his manner — his free-and-easy vaguenesses, 
his abrupt questions, his lolHngs and loungings, his 
innumerable oaths — were something more than an 
amusing ornament, were the outward manifesta- 
tion of an individuality that was fundamental. 

The precise nature of this individuality was very 
difficult to gauge: it was dubious, complex, per- 
haps self-contradictory. Certainly there was an 
ironical discordance between the inner history of 
the man and his apparent fortunes. He owed all 
he had to his birth, and his birth was shameful; it 
was known well enough that his mother had pas- 
sionately loved Lord Egremont, and that Lord 
Melbourne was not his father.^ His marriage, 
which had seemed to be the crown of his youthful 
ardours, was a long, miserable, desperate failure: 
the incredible Lady Caroline, 

. . . " with pleasures too refined to please. 

With too much spirit to be e'er at ease, 

With too much quickness to be ever taught. 

With too much thinking to have common thought," 

was very nearly the destruction of his life. When 
at last he emerged from the anguish and confusion 

iGreville, VI, 247; Torrens, 14; Hay ward, I, 336. 



LORD MELBOURNE 85 

of her folly, her extravagance, her rage, her de- 
spair, and her devotion, he was left alone with 
endless memories of intermingled farce and trag- 
edy, and an only son, who was an imbecile. But 
there was something else that he owed to Lady 
Caroline. While she whirled with Byron in a 
hectic frenzy of love and fashion, he had stayed at 
home in an indulgence bordering on cynicism, and 
occupied his solitude with reading. It was thus 
that he had acquired those habits of study, that 
love of learning, and that wide and accurate knowl- 
edge of ancient and modern literature, which 
formed so unexpected a part of his mental equip- 
ment. His passion for reading never deserted 
him; even when he was Prime Minister he found 
time to master every new important book.^ With 
an incongruousness that was characteristic, his 
favourite study was theology. An accomplished 
classical scholar, he was deeply read in the Fath- 
ers of the Church; heavy volumes of commentary 
and exegesis he examined with scrupulous dili- 
gence; and at any odd moment he might be found 
turning over the pages of the Bible." To the ladies 
whom he most liked he would lend some learned 

iGreville, VI, 248. 

2Greville, III, 331; VI, 254; Haydon, III, 12: "March 1, 1835. 
Called on Lord Melbourne, and found him reading the Acts, with 
a quarto Greek Testament that belonged to Samuel Johnson." 



86 QUEEN VICTORIA 

work on the Revelation, crammed with marginal 
notes in his own hand, or Dr. Lardner's " Obser- 
vations upon the Jewish Errors with respect to the 
Conversion of Mary Magdalene." The more pious 
among them had high hopes that these studies 
would lead him into the right way; but of this 
there were no symptoms in his after-dinner con- 
versations.^ 

The paradox of his political career was no less 
curious. By temperament an aristocrat, by convic- 
tion a conservative, he came to power as the leader 
of the popular party, the party of change. He 
had profoundly disliked the Reform Bill, which 
he had only accepted at last as a necessary evil; 
and the Reform Bill lay at the root of the very 
existence, of the very meaning, of his government. 
He was far too sceptical to believe in progress of 
any kind. Things were best as they were — or 
rather, they were least bad. " You'd better try 
to do no good," was one of his dictums, " and then 
you'll get into no scrapes." Education at best was 
futile; education of the poor was positively dan- 
gerous. The factory children? " Oh, if you'd only 
have the goodness to leave them alone!" Free 
Trade was a delusion; the ballot was nonsense; 
and there was no such thing as a democracy. Nev- 

iGreville, III, 142; Torrens, 545. 



LORDMELBOURNE 87 

ertheless, he was not a reactionary; he was simply 
an opportunist. The whole duty of government, 
he said, was " to prevent crime and to preserve 
contracts." All one could really hope to do was 
to carry on. He himself carried on in a remark- 
able manner — with perpetual compromises, with 
fluctuations and contradictions, with every kind of 
weakness, and yet with shrewdness, with gentle- 
ness, even with conscientiousness, and a light and 
airy mastery of men and of events. He conducted 
the transactions of business with extraordinary 
nonchalance. Important persons, ushered up for 
some grave interview, found him in a towselled 
bed, littered with books and papers, or vaguely 
shaving in a dressing-room; but, when they went 
downstairs again, they would realise that somehow 
or other they had been pumped. When he had to 
receive a deputation, he could hardly ever do so 
with becoming gravity. The worthy delegates of 
the tallow-chandlers, or the Society for the Abo- 
lition of Capital Punishment, were distressed and 
mortified when, in the midst of their speeches, the 
Prime Minister became absorbed in blowing a 
feather, or suddenly cracked an unseemly joke. 
How could they have guessed that he had spent 
the night before diligently getting up the details 
of their case? He hated patronage and the making 



88 QUEEN VICTORIA 

of appointments — a feeling rare in Ministers. "As 
for the Bishops," he burst out. " I positively be- 
lieve they die to vex me." But when at last the 
appointment was made, it was made with keen 
discrimination. His colleagues observed another 
symptom — was it of his irresponsibility or his wis- 
dom? He went to sleep in the Cabinet.^ 

Probably, if he had been born a little earlier, 
he would have been a simpler and a happier man. 
As it was, he was a child of the eighteenth century 
whose lot was cast in a new, difficult, unsympa- 
thetic age. He was an autumn rose. With all his 
gracious amenity, his humour, his happy-go-lucky 
ways, a deep disquietude possessed him. A senti- 
mental cynic, a sceptical believer, he was restless 
and melancholy at heart. Above all, he could 
never harden himself; those sensitive petals shiv- 
ered in every wind. Whatever else he might be, 
one thing was certain: Lord Melbourne was al- 
ways human, supremely human — too human, 
perhaps.^ 

And now, with old age upon him, his life took 
a sudden, new, extraordinary turn. He became, 
in the twinkling of an eye, the intimate adviser 
and the daily companion of a young girl who had 

■i. Girlhood, II, 148; Torrens, 278, 431, 617; GreviUe, IV, 331; 
VIII, 162. 
2 Greville, VI, 253-4; Torrens, 854. 



LORD MELBOURNE 89 

stepped all at once from a nursery to a throne. 
His relations with women had been, like every- 
thing else about him, ambiguous. Nobody had ever 
been able quite to gauge the shifting, emotional 
complexities of his married life; Lady Caroline 
vanished ; but his peculiar susceptibilities remained. 
Female society of some kind or other was neces- 
sary to him, and he did not stint himself; a great 
part of every day was invariably spent in it. The 
feminine element in him made it easy, made it 
natural and inevitable for him to be the friend of 
a great many women; but the masculine element 
in him was strong as well. In such circumstances 
it is also easy, it is even natural, perhaps it is even 
inevitable, to be something more than a friend. 
There were rumours and combustions. Lord Mel- 
bourne was twice a co-respondent in a divorce 
action; but on each occasion he won his suit. The 
lovely Lady Brandon, the unhappy and brilliant 
Mrs. Norton . . . the law exonerated them both. 
Beyond that hung an impenetrable veil. But at 
any rate it was clear that, with such a record, the 
Prime Minister's position in Buckingham Palace 
must be a highly delicate one. However, he was 
used to delicacies, and he met the situation with 
consummate success. His behaviour was from the 
first moment impeccable. His manner towards 



90 QUEEN VICTORIA 

the young Queen mingled, with perfect facility, 
the watchfulness and the respect of a statesman 
and a courtier with the tender solicitude of a par- 
ent. He was at once reverential and affectionate, 
at once the servant and the guide. At the same 
time the habits of his life underwent a surprising 
change. His comfortable, unpunctual days be- 
came subject to the unaltering routine of a palace; 
no longer did he sprawl on sofas; not a single 
" damn " escaped his lips. The man of the world 
who had been the friend of Byron and the regent, 
the talker whose paradoxes had held Holland 
House enthralled, the cynic whose ribaldries had' 
enlivened so many deep potations, the lover whose 
soft words had captivated such beauty and such 
passion and such wit, might now be seen, evening 
after evening, talking with infinite politeness to a 
schoolgirl, bolt upright, amid the silence and the 
rigidity of Court etiquette.^ 

rv 

On her side, Victoria was instantaneously fasci- 
nated by Lord Melbourne. The good report of 
Stockmar had no doubt prepared the way ; Lehzen 
was wisely propitiated ; and the first highly favour- 
able impression was never afterwards belied. She 

iGreviUe, IV, 135, 154; Girlhood, 1, 249. 



LORD MELBOURNE 91 

found him perfect; and perfect in her sight he re- 
mained. Her absolute and unconcealed adoration 
was very natural; what innocent young creature 
could have resisted, in any circumstances, the 
charm and the devotion of such a man? But, in 
her situation, there was a special influence which 
gave a peculiar glow to all she felt. After years 
of emptiness and dullness and suppression, she had 
come suddenly, in the heyday of youth, into free- 
dom and power. She was mistress of herself, of 
great domains and palaces; she was Queen of 
England. Responsibilities and difficulties she 
might have, no doubt, and in heavy measure; but 
one feeling dominated and absorbed all others — 
the feeling of joy. Everything pleased her. She 
was in high spirits from morning till night. Mr. 
Creevey, grown old now, and very near his end, 
catching a glimpse of her at Brighton, was much 
amused, in his sharp fashion, by the ingenuous 
gaiety of " little Vic." — " A more homely little 
being you never beheld, when she is at her ease, 
and she is evidently dying to be always more so. 
She laughs in real earnest, opening her mouth as 
wide as it can go, showing not very pretty gums. 
. . . She eats quite as heartily as she laughs, I 
think I may say she gobbles. . . . She blushes 
and laughs every instant in so natural a way as 



92 QUEEN VICTORIA 

to disarm anybody." ^ But it was not merely 
when she was laughing or gobbling that she en- 
joj^ed herself; the performance of her official du- 
ties gave her intense satisfaction. " I really have 
immensely to do," she wrote in her Journal a few 
days after her accession; " I receive so many com- 
munications from my Ministers, but I like it very 
much." ^ And again, a week later, " I repeat what 
I said before that I have so many communications 
from the Ministers, and from me to them, and I 
get so many papers to sign every day, that I have 
always a very great deal to do. I delight in this 
work." ^ Through the girl's immaturity the vigor- 
ous predestined tastes of the woman were pushing 
themselves into existence with eager velocity, with 
delicious force. 

One detail of her happy situation deserves par- 
ticular mention. Apart from the splendour of her 
social position and the momentousness of her polit- 
ical one, she was a person of great wealth. As 
soon as Parliament met, an annuity of £385,000 
was settled upon her. When the expenses of her 
household had been discharged, she was left with 
£68,000 a year of her own. She enjoyed besides 
the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster, which 
amounted annually to over £27,000. The first use 

1 Creevey, II, 326. 2 Girlhood, I, 203. 3 Ibid., 1, 206. 



LORDMELBOURNE 93 

to which she put her money was characteristic: 
she paid off her father's debts. In money matters, 
no less than in other matters, she was determined 
to be correct. She had the instincts of a man of 
business; and she never could have borne to be 
in a position that was financially unsound.^ 

With youth and happiness gilding eveiy hour, 
the days passed merrily enough. And each day 
hinged upon Lord Melbourne. Her diary shows 
us, with undiminished clarity, the life of the young 
sovereign during the early months of her reign — 
a life satisfactorily regular, full of delightful busi- 
ness, a life of simple pleasures, mostly physical — 
riding, eating, dancing — a quick, easy, highly un- 
sophisticated life, sufficient unto itself. The light 
of the morning is upon it; and, in the rosy radi- 
ance, the figure of " Lord M." emerges, glorified 
and supreme. If she is the heroine of the story, 
he is the hero; but indeed they are more than hero 
and heroine, for there are no other characters at 
all. Lehzen, the Baron, Uncle Leopold, are un- 
substantial shadows — the incidental supers of the 
piece. Her paradise was peopled by two persons, 
and surely that was enough. One sees them to- 
gether still, a curious couple, strangely united in 
those artless pages, under the magical illumination 

iLee, 79-81. 



94 QUEEN VICTORIA 

of that dawn of eighty years ago : the poHshed high 
fine gentleman with the whitening hair and whis- 
kers and the thick dark eyebrows and the mobile 
lips and the big expressive eyes; and beside him 
the tiny Queen — fair, slim, elegant, active, in her 
plain girl's dress and little tippet, looking up at 
him earnestly, adoringly, with eyes blue and pro- 
jecting, and half -open mouth. So they appear 
upon every page of the Journal; upon every page 
Lord M. is present. Lord M. is speaking. Lord M. 
is being amusing, instructive, delightful, and affec- 
tionate at once, while Victoria drinks in the honied 
words, laughs till she shows her gums, tries hard 
to remember, and runs off, as soon as she is left 
alone, to put it all down. Their long conversa- 
tions touched upon a multitude of topics. Lord M. 
would criticise books, throw out a remark or two 
on the British Constitution, make some passing 
reflections on human hfe, and tell story after story 
of the great people of the eighteenth century. 
Then there would be business — a despatch per- 
haps from Lord Durham in Canada, which Lord 
M. would read. But first he must explain a little. 
" He said that I must know that Canada origi- 
nally belonged to the French, and was only 
ceded to the English in 1760, when it was taken 
in an expedition under Wolfe : ' a very daring 



LORDMELBOURNE 95 

enterprise,' he said. Canada was then entirely 
French, and the British only came afterwards. 
. . . Lord M. explained this very clearly (and 
much better than I have done) and said a good 
deal more about it. He then read me Durham's 
despatch, which is a very long one and took him 
more than % an hour to read. Lord M. read it 
beautifully with that fine soft voice of his, and 
with so much expression, so that it is needless to 
say I was much interested by it." ^ And then the 
talk would take a more personal turn. Lord M. 
would describe his boyhood, and she would learn 
that " he wore his hair long, as all boys then did, 
till he was 17; {how handsome he must have 
looked!)." ^ Or she would find out about his queer 
tastes and habits — how he never carried a watch, 
which seemed quite extraordinary. " * I always 
ask the servant what o'clock it is, and then he tells 
me what he likes,' said Lord M." ^ Or, as the 
rooks wheeled about round the trees, " in a man- 
ner which indicated rain," he would say that he 
could sit looking at them for an hour, and " was 
quite surprised at my disliking them. . . . Lord 
M. said, ' The rooks are my delight.' " * 

The day's routine, whether in London or at 

^Girlhood, II, 3. ^lUd., II, 100. 

2lUd,ll, 29. ilUd., II, 57, 256. 



96 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Windsor, was almost invariable. The morning 
was devoted to business and Lord M. In the 
afternoon the whole Court went out riding. The 
Queen, in her velvet riding-habit and a top-hat 
with a veil draped about the brim, headed the cav- 
alcade; and Lord M. rode beside her. The lively 
troupe went fast and far, to the extreme exhilara- 
tion of Her Majesty. Back in the Palace again, 
there was still time for a little more fun before 
dinner — a game of battledore and shuttlecock per- 
haps, or a romp along the galleries with some chil- 
dren.^ Dinner came, and the ceremonial decidedly 
tightened. The gentleman of highest rank sat on 
the right hand of the Queen; on her left — it soon 
became an established rule — sat Lord Melbourne. 
After the ladies had left the dining-room, the gen- 
tlemen were not permitted to remain behind for 
very long; indeed, the short time allowed them for 
their wine-drinking formed the subject — so it was 
rumoured — of one of the very few disputes be- 
tween the Queen and her Prime Minister; " but her 



iLee, 71. 

2 The Duke of Bedford told Greville he was " sure there was a 
battle between her and Melbourne. . . . He is sure there was 
one about the men's sitting after dinner, for he heard her say to him 
rather angrily, ' it is a horrid custom ' — but when the ladies left 
the room (he dined there) directions were given that the men 
should remain five minutes longer." Greville Memoirs, February 26, 
1840 (unpublished). 




QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1838. 
From the painting ty E. Coriould. 



LORD MELBOURNE 97 

determination carried the day, and from that mo- 
ment after-dinner drunkenness began to go out of 
fashion. When the company was reassembled in 
the drawing-room the etiquette was stiff. For a 
few moments the Queen spoke in turn to each one 
of her guests ; and during these short uneasy collo- 
quies the aridity of royalty was apt to become 
painfully evident. One night Mr. Greville, the 
Clerk of the Privy Council, was present; his turn 
soon came ; the middle-aged, hard-faced viveur was 
addressed by his young hostess. " Have you been 
riding to-day, Mr. Greville?" asked the Queen. 
" No, Madam, I have not," replied Mr. Greville. 
" It was a fine day," continued the Queen. " Yes, 
Madam, a very fine day," said Mr. Greville. " It 
was rather cold, though," said the Queen. " It 
was rather cold. Madam," said Mr. Greville. 
" Your sister. Lady Frances Egerton, rides, I 
think, doesn't she? " said the Queen. " She does 
ride sometimes. Madam," said Mr. Greville. There 
was a pause, after which Mr. Greville ventured to 
take the lead, though he did not venture to change 
the subject. " Has your Majesty been riding to- 
day? " asked Mr. Greville. " Oh yes, a very long 
ride," answered the Queen with animation. " Has 
your Majesty got a nice horse?" said Mr. Gre- 
ville. " Oh, a very nice horse," said the Queen. 



98 QUEEN VICTORIA 

It was over. Her Majesty gave a smile and an 
inclination of the head, Mr. Greville a profound 
bow, and the next conversation began with the 
next gentleman/ A^Tien all the guests had been 
disposed of, the Duchess of Kent sat down to her 
whist, while everybody else was ranged about the 
round table. Lord Melbourne sat beside the 
Queen, and talked pertinaciously — very often a 
propos to the contents of one of the large albums 
of engravings with which the round table was cov- 
ered — until it was half -past eleven and time to go 
to bed.' 

Occasionally, there were little diversions: the 
evening might be spent at the opera or at the play. 
Next morning the royal critic was careful to note 
down her impressions. " It was Shakespeare's 
tragedy of Hamlet, and we came in at the begin- 
ning of it. Mr. Charles Kean (son of old Kean) 
acted the part of Hamlet, and I must say beau- 
tifully. His conception of this very difficult, and 
I may almost say incomprehensible, character is 
admirable ; his delivery of all the fine long speeches 
quite beautiful; he is excessively graceful and all 
his actions and attitudes are good, though not at 
all good-looking in face. ... I came away just 

1 Greville, March 11, 1838 (unpublished). 

2 Greville, IV, 152-3. 



LORD MELBOURNE 99 

as Hamlet was over." ^ Later on, she went to 
see Macready in King Lear. The story was new 
to her ; she knew nothing about it, and at first she 
took very little interest in what was passing on 
the stage; she preferred to chatter and laugh with 
the Lord Chamberlain. But, as the play went on, 
her mood changed; her attention was fixed, and 
then she laughed no more. Yet she was puzzled; 
it seemed a strange, a horrible business. What did 
Lord M. think? Lord M. thought it was a very 
fine play, but to be sure, " a rough, coarse play, 
written for those times, with exaggerated charac- 
ters." " I'm glad you've seen it," he added." But, 
undoubtedly, the evenings which she enjoyed most 
were those on which there was dancing. She was 
always ready enough to seize any excuse — the ar- 
rival of cousins — a birthday — a gathering of young 
people — to give the command for that. Then, 
when the band played, and the figures of the dan- 
cers swayed to the music, and she felt her own 
figure swaying too, with youthful spirits so close 
on every side — then her happiness reached its 
height, her eyes sparkled, she must go on and on 
into the small hours of the morning. For a mo- 
ment Lord M. himself was forgotten. 

1- Girlhood, 1, 265-6. 

2Martineau, II, 119-20; Girlhood, II, 121-2. 



100 QUEEN VICTORIA 

V 

The months flew past. The summer was over: 
" the pleasantest summer I ever passed in my life, 
and I shall never forget this first smnmer of my 
reign." ^ With surprising rapidity, another sum- 
mer was upon her. The coronation came and 
went — a curious dream. The antique, intricate, 
endless ceremonial worked itself out as best it 
could, like some machine of gigantic complexity 
which was a little out of order. The small central 
figure went through her gyrations. She sat; she 
walked; she prayed; she carried about an orb that 
was almost too heavy to hold; the Archbishop of 
Canterbury came and crushed a ring upon the 
wrong finger, so that she was ready to cry out 
with the pain; old Lord Rolle tripped up in his 
mantle and fell down the steps as he was doing 
homage; she was taken into a side chapel, ,vhere 
the altar was covered with a table-cloth, sand- 
wiches, and bottles of wine; she perceived Lehzen 
in an upper box and exchanged a smile with her 
as she sat, robed and crowned, on the Confessor's 
throne. " I shall ever remember this day as the 
proudest of my life," she noted. But the pride 
was soon merged once more in youth and sim- 
plicity. When she returned to Buckingham Pal- 

1 Girlhood, I, 229. 



LORD MELBOURNE 101 

ace at last she was not tired; she ran up to her 
private rooms, doffed her splendours, and gave 
her dog Dash its evening bath/ 

Life flowed on again with its accustomed smooth- 
ness — though, of course, the smoothness was occa- 
sionally disturbed. For one thing, there was the 
distressing behaviour of Uncle Leopold. The King 
of the Belgians had not been able to resist attempt- 
ing to make use of his family position to further 
his diplomatic ends. But, indeed, why should there 
be any question of resisting? Was not such a 
course of conduct, far from being a temptation, 
simply seloTi les regies? What were royal mar- 
riages for, if they did not enable sovereigns, in 
spite of the hindrances of constitutions, to control 
foreign politics? For the highest purposes, of 
com-S'^ ; that was understood. The Queen of Eng- 
land Was his niece — more than that — almost his 
daughter; his confidential agent was living, in a 
position of intimate favour, at her court. Surely, 
in such circumstances, it would be preposterous, 
it would be positively incorrect, to lose the oppor- 
tunity of bending to his wishes by means of per- 
sonal influence, behind the backs of the English 
Ministers, the foreign poKcy of England. 

He set about the task with becoming precau- 

1 Girlhood, I, 356-64; Leslie, II, 239. 



102 QUEEN VICTORIA 

tions. He continued in his letters his admirable 
advice. Within a few days of her accession, he 
recommended the young Queen to lay emphasis, 
on every possible occasion, upon her English birth ; 
to praise the English nation; "the Established 
Church I also recommend strongly; you cannot, 
without pledging yourself to anything particular, 
say too much on the subject" And then " before 
you decide on anything important I should be glad 
if you would consult me; this would also have the 
advantage of giving you time " ; nothing was more 
injurious than to be hurried into wrong decisions 
unawares. His niece replied at once with all the 
accustomed warmth of her affection; but she wrote 
hurriedly — and, perhaps, a trifle vaguely too. 
" Your advice is always of the greatest impor- 
tance to me," she said.^ 

Had he, possibly, gone too far? He could not 
be certain; perhaps Victoria had been hurried. 
In any case, he would be careful; he would draw 
hB.ck—pour mieucc sauter, he added to himself 
with a smile. In his next letters he made no ref- 
erence to his suggestion of consultations with him- 
self; he merely pointed out the wisdom, in general, 
of refusing to decide upon important questions 
off-hand. So far, his advice was taken; and it 

^Letters, I, 79. 



LORD MELBOURNE 103 

was noticed that the Queen, when applications 
were made to her, rarely gave an immediate an- 
swer. Even with Lord Melbourne, it was the 
same; when he asked for her opinion upon any 
subject, she would reply that she would think it 
over, and tell him her conclusions next day/ 

King Leopold's counsels continued. The Prin- 
cess de Lieven, he said, was a dangerous woman; 
there was reason to think that she would make 
attempts to pry into what did not concern her; 
let Victoria beware. " A rule which I cannot suf- 
ficiently recommend is never to permit people to 
speak on subjects concerning yourself or your af- 
fairs, without you having yourself desired them to 
do so." Should such a thing occur, " change the 
conversation, and make the individual feel that he 
has made a mistake." This piece of advice was 
also taken; for it fell out as the King had pre- 
dicted. Madame de Lieven sought an audience, 
and appeared to be verging towards confidential 
topics; whereupon the Queen, becoming slightly 
embarrassed, talked of nothing but commonplaces. 
The individual felt taht she had made a mistake." 

The King's next warning was remarkable. Let- 
ters, he pointed out, are almost invariably read in 

■i- Letters, I, 80; Greville, IV, 22. 
2Greville, I, 85-6; Greville, IV, 16. 



104. QUEENVICTORIA 

the post. This was inconvenient, no doubt; but 
the fact, once properly grasped, was not without 
its advantages. " I will give you an example: we 
are still plagued by Prussia concerning those fort- 
resses ; now to tell the Prussian Government many 
things, which we should not like to tell them offi- 
cially, the Minister is going to write a despatch to 
our man at Berlin, sending it by post; the Prus- 
sians are sure to read it, and to learn in this way 
what we wish them to hear." Analogous circum- 
stances might very probably occur in England. 
" I tell you the trick/" wrote His Majesty, " that 
you should be able to guard against it." Such 
were the subtleties of constitutional sovereignty.^ 
It seemed that the time had come for another 
step. The King's next letter was full of foreign 
politics — the situation in Spain and Portugal, the 
character of Louis Philippe; and he received a 
favourable answer. Victoria, it is true, began by 
saying that she had shown the political part of his 
letter to Lord Melbourne; but she proceeded to a 
discussion of foreign affairs. It appeared that 
she was not unwilling to exchange observations on 
such matters with his uncle." So far so good. 
But King Leopold was still cautious; though a 
crisis was impending in his diplomacy, he still hung 

1 Letters, I, 93. ^ Ihid., I, 93-5. 



LORD MELBOURNE 105 

back; at last, however, he could keep silence no 
longer. It was of the utmost importance to him 
that, in his manoeuvrings with France and Hol- 
land, he should have, or at any rate appear to 
have, English support. But the English Govern- 
ment appeared to adopt a neutral attitude; it was 
too bad ; not to be for him was to be against him — 
could they not see that? Yet, perhaps, thej?^ were 
only wavering, and a Httle pressure upon them 
from Victoria might still save all. He determined 
to put the case before her, delicately yet forcibly — 
just as he saw it himself. " All I want from your 
kind Majesty," he wrote, " is, that you will occa- 
sionally express to your Ministers, and particu- 
larly to good Lord Melbourne, that, as far as it is 
compatible with the interests of your own domin- 
ions, you do not wish that your Government should 
take the lead in such measures as might in a short 
time bring on the destruction of this country, as 
well as that of your uncle and his family." ^ The 
result of this appeal was unexpected; there was 
dead silence for more than a week. When Vic- 
toria at last wrote, she was prodigal of her affec- 
tion — " it would, indeed, my dearest Uncle, be 
very wrong of you, if you thought my feelings of 
warm and devoted attachment to you, and of great 

■i- Letters, 1, 116. 



106 QUEEN VICTORIA 

affection for you, could be changed — nothing can 
ever change them " — but her references to foreign 
poHtics, though they were lengthy and elaborate, 
were non-committal in the extreme; they were al- 
most cast in an official and diplomatic form. Her 
Ministers, she said, entirely shared her views upon 
the subject; she understood and sympathised with 
the difficulties of her beloved uncle's position; and 
he might rest assured " that both Lord Melbourne 
and Lord Palmerston are most anxious at all times 
for the prosperity and welfare of Belgium." That 
was all. The King in his reply declared himself 
delighted, and re-echoed the affectionate protesta- 
tions of his niece. " My dearest and most beloved 
Victoria," he said, " you have written me a very 
dear and long letter, which has given me great 
pleasure and satisfaction^' He would not admit 
that he had had a rebuff.^ 

A few months later the crisis came. King Leo- 
pold determined to make a bold push, and to carry 
Victoria with him, this time, by a display of royal 
vigour and avuncular authority. In an abrupt, 
an almost peremptory letter, he laid his case, once 
more, before his niece. " You know from experi- 
ence," he wrote, " that I never ash anything of 
you. . . . But, as I said before, if we are not 

^ Letters, I, 117-20. 



LORDMELBOURNE 107 

careful we may see serious consequences which 
may affect more or less everybody, and this ought 
to be the object of our most anxious attention. I 
remain, my dear Victoria, your affectionate uncle, 
Leopold R." ^ The Queen immediately despatched 
this letter to Lord Melbourne, who replied with a 
carefully thought-out form of words, signifying 
nothing whatever, which, he suggested, she should 
send to her uncle. She did so, copying out the 
elaborate formula, with a liberal scattering of 
"dear Uncles" interspersed; and she concluded 
her letter with a message of " affectionate love to 
Aunt Louise and the children." Then at last King 
Leopold was obliged to recognise the facts. His 
next letter contained no reference at all to poli- 
tics. " I am glad," he wrote, " to find that you 
like Brighton better than last year. I think 
Brighton very agreeable at this time of the year, 
till the east winds set in. The pavilion, besides, is 
comfortable; that cannot be denied. Before my 
marriage, it was there that I met the Regent. 
Charlotte afterwards came with old Queen Char- 
lotte. How distant all this already, but still how 
present to one's memory." Like poor Madame de 
Lieven, His Majesty felt that he had made a 
mistake.^ 

1 Letters, I, 134. 2 ma., I, 134-6, 140. 



108 QUEENVICTORIA 

Nevertheless, he could not quite give up all 
hope. Another opportunity offered, and he made 
another effort — but there was not very much con- 
viction in it, and it was immediately crushed. " My 
dear Uncle," the Queen wrote, " I have to thank 
you for your last letter which I received on Sun- 
day. Though you seem not to dislike my political 
sparks, I think it is better not to increase them, 
as they might finally take fire, particularly as I 
see with regret that upon this one subject we can- 
not agree. I shall, therefore, limit myself to my 
expressions of very sincere wishes for the welfare 
and prosperity of Belgium." ^ After that, it was 
clear that there was no more to be said. Hence- 
forward there is audible in the King's letters a 
curiously elegiac note. '' My dearest Victoria, 
your delightful little letter has just arrived and 
went like an arrow to my heart. Yes, my beloved 
Victoria! I do love you tenderly ... I love you 
for yourself^ and I love in you the dear child whose 
welfare I tenderly watched." He had gone through 
much; yet, if life had its disappointments, it had 
its satisfactions too. " I have all the honours that 
can be given, and I am, politically speaking, very 
solidly established." But there were other things 
besides politics; there were romantic yearnings in 

i Letters, 1, 154. 



LORD MELBOURNE 109 

his heart. " The only longing I still have is for 
the Orient, where I perhaps shall once end my life, 
rising in the west and setting in the east." As for 
his devotion to his niece, that could never end. 
" I never press my services on you, nor my coun- 
cils, though I may say with some truth that from 
the extraordinary fate which the higher powers 
had ordained for me, my experience, both political 
and of private life, is great. I am always ready 
to be useful to you when and where it may be, 
and I repeat it, all I want in return is some little 
sincere affection from you." ^ 

VI 

The correspondence with King Leopold was sig- 
nificant of much that still lay partly hidden in the 
character of Victoria. Her attitude towards her 
uncle had never wavered for a moment. To all his 
advances she had presented an absolutely unyield- 
ing front. The foreign policy of England was 
not his province; it was hers and her Ministers'; 
his insinuations, his entreaties, his struggles — all 
were quite useless; and he must understand that 
this was so. The rigidity of her position was the 
more striking owing to the respectfulness and the 
affection with which it was accompanied. From 

1 Letters, I, 185. 



110 QUEEN VICTORIA 

start to finish the unmoved Queen remained the 
devoted niece. Leopold himself must have envied 
such perfect correctitude ; but what may be admir- 
able in an elderly statesman is alarming in a 
maiden of nineteen. And privileged observers 
were not without their fears. The strange mix- 
ture of ingenuous light-heartedness and fixed de- 
termination, of frankness and reticence, of child- 
ishness and pride, seemed to augur a future that 
was perplexed and full of dangers. As time 
passed the less pleasant qualities in this curious 
composition revealed themselves more often and 
more seriously. There were signs of an imperious, 
a peremptory temper, an egotism that was strong 
and hard. It was noticed that the palace etiquette, 
far from relaxing, grew ever more and more in- 
flexible. By some, this was attributed to Lehzeii's 
influence ; but, if that was so, Lehzen had a willing 
pupil; for the slightest infringements of the freez- 
ing rules of regularity and deference were invari- 
ably and immediately visited by the sharp and 
haughty glances of the Queen.^ Yet Her Majes- 
ty's eyes, crushing as they could be, were less 
crushing than her mouth. The self-will depicted 
in those small projecting teeth and that small re- 
ceding chin was of a more dismaying kind than 

1 Greville, IV, 16-17 ; Crawford, 163-4. 



LORD MELBOURNE 111 

that which a powerful jaw betokens; it was a self- 
will imperturbable, impenetrable, unintelligent; a 
self-will dangerously akin to obstinacy. And the 
obstinacy of monarchs is not as that of other men. 
Within two years of her accession, the storm- 
clouds which, from the first, had been dimly visible 
on the horizon, gathered and burst. Victoria's 
relations with her mother had not improved. The 
Duchess of Kent, still surrounded by all the gall- 
ing appearances of filial consideration, remained 
in Buckingham Palace a discarded figure, power- 
less and inconsolable. Sir John Conroy, banished 
from the presence of the Queen, still presided over 
the Duchess's household, and the hostilities of Ken- 
sington continued unabated in the new surround- 
ings. Lady Flora Hastings still cracked her 
malicious jokes; the animosity of the Baroness 
was still unappeased. One day. Lady Flora found 
the joke was turned against her. Early in 1839, 
travelling in the suite of the Duchess, she had 
returned from Scotland in the same carriage with 
Sir John. A change in her figure became the 
subject of an unseemly jest; tongues wagged; 
and the jest grew serious. It was whispered that 
Lady Flora was with child/ The state of her 
health seemed to confirm the suspicion; she con- 

iGreville, IV, 178, and August 15, 1839 (unpublished). 



112 QUEEN VICTORIA 

suited Sir James Clark, the royal physician, and, 
after the consultation, Sir James let his tongue 
wag, too. On this, the scandal flared up sky-high. 
Everyone was talking; the Baroness was not sur- 
prised; the Duchess rallied tumultuously to the 
support of her lady; the Queen was informed. At 
last the extraordinary expedient of a medical 
examination was resorted to, during which Sir 
James, according to Lady Flora, behaved with 
brutal rudeness, while a second doctor was ex- 
tremely polite. Finally, both physicians signed a 
certificate entirely exculpating the lady. But this 
was by no means the end of the business. The 
Hastings family, socially a very powerful one, 
threw itself into the fray with all the fury of out- 
raged pride and injured innocence ; Lord Hastings 
insisted upon an audience of the Queen, wrote to 
the papers, and demanded the dismissal of Sir 
James Clark. The Queen expressed her regret to 
Lady Flora, but Sir James Clark was not dis- 
missed. The tide of opinion turned violently 
against the Queen and her advisers; high society 
was disgusted by all this washing of dirty linen 
in Buckingham Palace; the public at large was 
indignant at the ill-treatment of Lady Flora. 
By the end of March, the popularity, so radi- 
ant and so abundant, with which the young 



LORD MELBOURNE 113 

Sovereign had begun her reign, had entii'ely dis- 
appeared/ 

There can be no doubt that a great lack of dis- 
cretion had been shown by the Court. Ill-natured 
tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly 
nipped in the bud, had been allowed to assume dis- 
graceful proportions; and the Throne itself had 
become involved in the personal malignities of the 
palace. A particularly awkward question had been 
raised by the position of Sir James Clark. The 
Duke of Wellington, upon whom it was customary 
to fall back, in cases of great difficulty in high . 
places, had been consulted upon this question, and 
he had given it as his opinion that, as it would be 
impossible to remove Sir James without a public 
enquiry. Sir James must certainly stay where he 
was.^ Probably the Duke was right; but the fact 
that the peccant doctor continued in the Queen's 
service made the Hastings family irreconcilable 
and produced an unpleasant impression of unre- 
pentant error upon the public mind. As for Vic- 
toria, she was very young and quite inexperienced ; 
and she can hardly be blamed for having failed 
to control an extremely difficult situation. That 

1 *' Nobody cares for the Queen, her popularity has sunk to zero, 
and loyalty is a dead letter." Greville, March 25, 1839; Morning 
Post, September 14, 1839. 

2 Greville, August 15, 1839 (unpublished). 



114 QUEEN VICTORIA 

was clearly Lord Melbourne's task; he was a man 
of the world, and, with vigilance and circumspec- 
tion, he might have quietly put out the ugly flames 
while they were still smouldering. He did not do 
so; he was lazy and easy-going; the Baroness was 
persistent, and he let things slide. But doubtless 
his position was not an easy one ; passions ran high 
in the palace; and Victoria was not only very 
young, she was very headstrong, too. Did he pos- 
sess the magic bridle which would curb that fiery 
steed? He could not be certain. And then, sud- 
denly, another violent crisis revealed more unmis- 
takably than ever the nature of the mind with 
which he had to deal. 

VII 

The Queen had for long been haunted by a 
terror that the day might come when she would 
be obliged to part with her Minister. Ever since 
the passage of the Reform Bill, the power of the 
Whig Government had steadily declined. The 
General Election of 1837 had left them with a 
very small majority in the House of Commons; 
since then, they had been in constant difficulties — 
abroad, at home, in Ireland; the Radical group 
had grown hostile; it became highly doubtful how 
much longer they could survive. The Queen 



LORD MELBOURNE 115 

watched the development of events in great anx- 
iety. She was a Whig by birth, bj^ upbringing, by 
every association, public and private; and, even if 
those ties had never existed, the mere fact that 
Lord M. was the head of the Whigs would have 
amply sufficed to determine her politics. The fall 
of the Whigs would mean a sad upset for Lord 
M. But it would have a still more terrible con- 
sequence: Lord M. would have to leave her; and 
the daily, the hourly, presence of Lord M. had 
become an integral part of her life. Six months 
after her accession she had noted in her diary " I 
shall be very sorry to lose him even for one 
night ";^ and this feeling of personal dependence 
on her Minister steadily increased. In these cir- 
cumstances it was natural that she should have be- 
come a Whig partisan. Of the wider significance 
of political questions she knew nothing ; all she saw 
was that her friends were in office and about her, 
and that it would be dreadful if they ceased to be 
so. " I cannot say," she wrote when a critical divi- 
sion was impending, "(though I feel confident of 
our success) how low, how" sad I feel, when I 
think of the possibility of this excellent and truly 
kind man not remaining my Minister ! Yet I trust 
fervently that He who has so wonderfully pro- 

^ Girlhood, I, 264. 



116 QUEEN VICTORIA 

tected me through such manifold difficulties will 
not now desert me! I should have liked to have 
expressed to Lord M. my anxiety, but the tears 
were nearer than words throughout the time I saw 
him, and I felt I should have choked, had I at- 
tempted to say anything." ^ Lord Melbourne 
realised clearly enough how undesirable was such a 
state of mind in a constitutional sovereign who 
might be called upon at any moment to receive as 
her Ministers the leaders of the opposite party; 
he did what he could to cool her ardour; but in 
vain. 

With considerable lack of foresight, too, he had 
himself helped to bring about this unfortunate 
condition of affairs. From the moment of her 
accession, he had surrounded the Queen with ladies 
of his own party; the Mistress of the Robes and 
all the Ladies of the Bedchamber were Whigs. In 
the ordinary course, the Queen never saw a Tory: 
eventually she took pains never to see one in any 
circumstances. She disliked the whole tribe; and 
she did not conceal the fact. She particularly dis- 
liked Sir Robert Peel, who would almost certainly 
be the next Prime Minister. His manners were 
detestable, and he wanted to turn out Lord INI. 
His supporters, without exception, were equally 

■L Girlhood, I, 324. 



LORD MELBOURNE 117 

bad; and as for Sir James Graham, she could not 
bear the sight of him ; he was exactly like Sir John 
Conroy/ 

The affair of Lady Flora intensified these party 
rumours still further. The Hastings were Tories, 
and Lord Melbourne and the Court were attacked 
by the Tory press in unmeasured language. The 
Queen's sectarian zeal proportionately increased. 
But the dreaded hour was now fast approaching. 
Early in May the Ministers were visibly tottering; 
on a vital point of policy they could only secure 
a majority of five in the House of Commons; they 
determined to resign. When Victoria heard the 
news she burst into tears. Was it possible, then, 
that all was over? Was she, indeed, about to see 
Lord M. for the last time? Lord M. came; and 
it is a curious fact that, even in this crowning 
moment of misery and agitation, the precise girl 
noted, to the minute, the exact time of the arrival 
and the departure of her beloved Minister. The 
conversation was touching and prolonged; but it 
could only end in one way — the Queen must send 
for the Duke of Wellington. When, next morning, 
the Duke came, he advised her Majesty to send for 
Sir Robert Peel. She was in " a state of dreadful 
grief," but she swallowed down her tears, and 

iGreville, August 4, 1841 (unpublished); Girlhood, II, 154, 162. 



118 QUEEN VICTORIA 

braced herself, with royal resolution, for the 
odious, odious interview. 

Peel was by nature reserved, proud, and shy. 
His manners were not perfect, and he knew it; 
he was easily embarrassed, and, at such moments, 
he grew even more stiff and formal than before, 
while his feet mechanically performed upon the 
carpet a dancing-master's measure. Anxious as 
he now was to win the Queen's good graces, his 
very anxiety to do so made the attainment of his 
object the more difficult. He entirely failed to 
make any headway whatever with the haughty 
hostile girl before him. She coldly noted that he 
appeared to be unhappy and " put out," and, while 
he stood in painful fixity, with an occasional un- 
easy pointing of the toe, her heart sank within her 
at the sight of that manner, " Oh! how different, 
how dreadfully different, to the frank, open, nat- 
ural, and most kind warm manner of Lord Mel- 
bourne." Nevertheless, the audience passed with- 
out disaster. Only at one point had there been 
some slight hint of a disagreement. Peel had de- 
cided that a change would be necessary in the com- 
position of the royal Household: the Queen must 
no longer be entirely surrounded by the wives and 
sisters of his opponents; some, at any rate, of the 
Ladies of the Bedchamber should be friendly to 



LORD MELBOURNE 119 

his Government. When this matter was touched 
upon, the Queen had intimated that she wished 
her Household to remain unchanged; to which Sir 
Robert had rephed that the question could be set- 
tled later, and shortly afterwards withdrew to ar- 
range the details of his Cabinet. While he was 
present, Victoria had remained, as she herself said, 
" very much collected, civil and high, and betrayed 
no agitation " ; but as soon as she was alone she 
completely broke down. Then she pulled herself 
together to write to Lord Melbourne an account 
of all that had happened, and of her own wretch- 
edness. " She feels," she said, " Lord Melbourne 
will understand it, amongst enemies to those she 
most relied on and most esteemed; but what is 
worst of all is the being deprived of seeing Lord 
Melbourne as she used to do." 

Lord Melbourne replied with a very wise letter. 
He attempted to calm the Queen and to induce 
her to accept the new position gracefully; and he 
had nothing but good words for the Tory leaders. 
As for the question of the Ladies of the House- 
hold, the Queen, he said, should strongly urge 
what she desired, as it was a matter which con- 
cerned her personally, " but," he added, " if Sir 
Robert is unable to concede it, it will not do to 
refuse and to put off the negotiation upon it." 



120 QUEEN VICTORIA 

On this point there can be Httle doubt that Lord 
Melbourne was right. The question was a com- 
plicated and subtle one, and it had never arisen 
before; but subsequent constitutional practice has 
determined that a Queen Regnant must accede to 
the wishes of her Prime Minister as to the per- 
sonnel of the female part of her Household. Lord 
Melbourne's wisdom, however, was wasted. The 
Queen would not be soothed, and still less would 
she take advice. It was outrageous of the Tories 
to want to deprive her of her Ladies, and that 
night she made up her mind that, whatever Sir 
Robert might say, she would refuse to consent to 
the removal of a single one of them. Accordingly, 
when, next morning, Peel appeared again, she 
was ready for action. He began by detailing the 
Cabinet appointments, and then he added " Now, 
ma'am, about the Ladies " — when the Queen 
sharply interrupted him. " I cannot give up any 
of my Ladies," she said. "What, ma'am!" said 
Sir Robert, " does your Majesty mean to retain 
them all? " '' AU/' said the Queen. Sir Robert's 
face worked strangely; he could not conceal his 
agitation. " The Mistress of the Robes and the 
Ladies of the Bedchamber?" he brought out at 
last. "All/' replied once more her Majesty. It 
was in vain that Peel pleaded and argued; in vain 



LORD MELBOURNE 121 

that he spoke, growing every moment more pom- 
pous and uneasy, of the constitution, and Queens 
Regnant, and the public interest; in vain that he 
danced his pathetic minuet. She was adamant; 
but he, too, through all his embarrassment, showed 
no sign of yielding; and when at last he left her 
nothing had been decided — the whole formation of 
the Government was hanging in the wind. A 
frenzy of excitement now seized upon Victoria. 
Sir Robert, she believed in her fury, had tried to 
outwit her, to take her friends from her, to impose 
his will upon her own; but that was not all: she 
had suddenly perceived, while the poor man was 
moving so uneasily before her, the one thing that 
she was desperately longing for — a loop-hole of 
escape. She seized a pen and dashed off a note to 
Lord Melbourne. 

" Sir Robert has behaved very ill," she wrote, 
" he insisted on my giving up my Ladies, to which 
I replied that I never would consent, and I never 
saw a man so frightened. ... I was calm but 
very decided, and I think you would have been 
pleased to see my composure and great firmness; 
the Queen of England will not submit to such 
trickery. Keep yourself in readiness, for you may 
soon be wanted." Hardly had she finished when 
the Duke of Wellington was announced. " Well, 



122 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Ma'am," he said as he entered, " I am very sorry 
to find there is a difficulty." " Oh! " she instantly 
replied, " he began it, not me." She felt that only 
one thing now was needed : she must be firm. And 
firm she was. The venerable conqueror of Napo- 
leon was outfaced by the relentless equanimity of 
a girl in her teens. He could not move the Queen 
one inch. At last, she even ventured to rally him. 
" Is Sir Robert so weak," she asked, " that even 
the Ladies must be of his opinion? " On which the 
Duke made a brief and humble expostulation, 
bowed low, and departed. 

Had she won? Time would show; and in the 
meantime she scribbled down another letter. 
" Lord Melbourne must not think the Queen rash 
in her conduct. . . . The Queen felt this was an 
attempt to see whether she could be led and man- 
aged like a child." The Tories were not only 
wicked but ridiculous. Peel, having, as she under- 
stood, expressed a wish to remove only those mem- 
bers of the Household who were in Parliament, 
now objected to her Ladies. " I should like to 
know," she exclaimed in triumphant scorn, " if 
they mean to give the Ladies seats in Parlia- 
ment?" 

The end of the crisis was now fast approaching. 
Sir Robert returned, and told her that if she in- 



LORD MELBOURNE 123 

sisted upon retaining all her Ladies he could not 
form a Government. She replied that she would 
send him her final decision in writing. Next morn- 
ing the late Whig Cabinet met. Lord Melbourne 
read to them the Queen's letters, and the group of 
elderly politicians were overcome bj^ an extraordi- 
nary wave of enthusiasm. They knew very well 
that, to say the least, it was highly doubtful 
whether the Queen had acted in strict accordance 
with the constitution; that in doing what she had 
done she had brushed aside Lord Melbourne's ad- 
vice; that, in reality, there was no public reason 
whatever why they should go back upon their deci- 
sion to resign. But such considerations vanished 
before the passionate urgency of Victoria. The 
intensity of her determination swept them head- 
long down the stream of her desire. They unani- 
mously felt that " it was impossible to abandon 
such a Queen and such a woman." Forgetting 
that they were no longer her Majesty's Ministers, 
they took the unprecedented course of advising the 
Queen by letter to put an end to her negotiation 
with Sir Robert Peel. She did so; all was over; 
she had triumphed. That evening there was a ball 
at the Palace. Everyone was present. " Peel and 
the Duke of Wellington came by looking very 
much put out." She was perfectly happy; Lord 



124 QUEEN VICTORIA 

M. was Prime Minister once more, and he was by 
her side/ 

VIII 

Happiness had retm'ned with Lord M., but it 
was happiness in the midst of agitation. The 
domestic imbroglio continued unabated, until at 
last the Duke, rejected as a Minister, was called 
in once again in his old capacity as moral physi- 
cian to the family. Something was accomplished 
when, at last, he induced Sir John Conroy to re- 
sign his place about the Duchess of Kent and leave 
the Palace for ever; something more when he per- 
suaded the Queen to write an affectionate letter to 
her mother. The way seemed open for a reconcil- 
iation, but the Duchess was stormy still. She 
didn't believe that Victoria had written that letter ; 
it was not in her handwriting; and she sent for the 
Duke to tell him so. The Duke, assuring her that 
the letter was genuine, begged her to forget the 

1- Letters, I, 154-72; Girlhood, II, 16^75; Greville, IV, 206-217, 
and unpublished passages; Broughton, V, 195; Clarendon, I, 165. 
The exclamation " They wished to treat me like a girl, but I will 
show them that I am Queen of England ! " often quoted as the 
Queen's, is apocryphal. It is merely part of Greville's summary 
of the two letters to Melbourne, printed in Letters, 162 and 163. 
It may be noted that the phrase " the Queen of England will not 
submit to such trickery" is omitted in Girlhood, 169; and in 
general there are numerous verbal discrepancies between the versions 
of the journal and the letters in the two books. 



LORD MELBOURNE 125 

past. But that was not so easy. " What am I to 
do if Lord Melbourne comes up to me?" "Do, 
ma'am? Why, receive him with civiHty." Well, 
she would make an effort. ..." But what am I 
to do if Victoria asks me to shake hands with 
Lehzen? " " Do, ma'am? Why, take her in your 
arms and kiss her." "What!" The Duchess 
bristled in every feather, and then she burst into 
a hearty laugh. " No, ma'am, no," said the Duke, 
laughing too. " I don't mean you are to take 
Lehzen in your arms and kiss her, but the 
Queen." ' 

The Duke might perhaps have succeeded, had 
not all attempts at conciliation been rendered hope- 
less by a tragical event. Lady Flora, it was dis- 
covered, had been suffering from a terrible internal 
malady, which now grew rapidly worse. There 
could be little doubt that she was dying. The 
Queen's unpopularity reached an extraordinary 
height. More than once she was pubhcly insulted. 
" Mrs. Melbourne," was shouted at her when she 
appeared at her balcony; and, at Ascot, she was 
hissed by the Duchess of Montrose and Lady 
Sarah Ingestre as she passed. Lady Flora died. 
The whole scandal burst out again with redoubled 
vehemence; while, in the Palace, the two parties 

1 Greville, June 7, June 10, June 15, August 15, 1839 (unpublished). 



126 QUEEN VICTORIA 

were henceforth divided by an impassable, a 
Stygian, gulf.' 

Nevertheless, Lord M. was back, and every 
trouble faded under the enchantment of his pres- 
ence and his conversation. He, on his side, had 
gone through much; and his distresses were inten- 
sified by a consciousness of his own shortcomings. 
He realised clearly enough that, if he had inter- 
vened at the right moment, the Hastings scandal 
might have been averted; and, in the bedchamber 
crisis, he knew that he had allowed his judgment 
to be overruled and his conduct to be swayed by 
private feelings and the impetuosity of Victoria.^ 
But he was not one to suffer too acutely from the 
pangs of conscience. In spite of the dullness and 
the formality of the Court, his relationship with 
the Queen had come to be the dominating interest 
in his life; to have been deprived of it would have 
been heartrending; that dread eventuality had 
been — somehow — avoided; he was installed once 
more, in a kind of triumph; let him enjoy the 
fleeting hours to the full! And so, cherished by 
the favour of a sovereign and warmed by the 
adoration of a girl, the autumn rose, in those 
autumn months of 1839, came to a wondrous 

1 Greville, June 24 and July 7, 1839 (unpublished) ; Crawford, 222. 
zGreville, VI, 251-2. 



LORD MELBOURNE 127 

blooming. The petals expanded, beautifully, for 
the last time. For the last time in this unlooked- 
for, this incongruous, this almost incredible inter- 
course, the old epicure tasted the exquisiteness of 
romance. To watch, to teach, to restrain, to en- 
courage the royal young creature beside him — 
that was much; to feel with such a constant inti- 
macy the impact of her quick affection, her radi- 
ant vitality — that was more; most of all, perhaps, 
was it good to linger vaguely in humorous con- 
templation, in idle apostrophe, to talk disconnect- 
edly, to make a little joke about an apple or a 
furbelow, to dream. The springs of his sensibility, 
hidden deep within him, were overflowing. Often, 
as he bent over her hand and kissed it, he found 
himself in tears.^ 

Upon Victoria, with all her impermeability, it 
was inevitable that such a companionship should 
have produced, eventually, an effect. She was no 
longer the simple schoolgirl of two years since. 
The change was visible even in her public de- 
meanour. Her expression, once " ingenuous and 
serene," now appeared to a shrewd observer to 
be " bold and discontented." ^ She had learnt 
something of the pleasures of power and the pains 

iGreville, VI, 251; Girlhood, I, 236, 238; II, 267. 
2Martineau, II, 120. 



128 QUEEN VICTORIA 

of it; but that was not all. Lord Melbourne with 
his gentle instruction had sought to lead her into 
the paths of wisdom and moderation, but the whole 
unconscious movement of his character had swayed 
her in a very different direction. The hard clear 
pebble, subjected for so long and so constantly to 
that encircling and insidious fluidity, had suffered 
a curious corrosion; it seemed to be actually grow- 
ing a little soft and a little clouded. Humanity 
and fallibility are infectious things; was it possible 
that Lehzen's prim pupil had caught them? That 
she was beginning to listen to siren voices? That 
the secret impulses of self-expression, of self- 
indulgence even, were mastering her life? For a 
moment the child of a new age looked back, and 
wavered towards the eighteenth century. It was 
the most critical moment of her career. Had those 
influences lasted, the development of her character, 
the history of her life, would have been completely 
changed. 

And why should they not last? She, for one, 
was very anxious that they should. Let them last 
for ever! She was surrounded by ^Vhigs, she was 
free to do whatever she wanted, she had Lord M.; 
she could not believe that she could ever be hap- 
pier. Any change would be for the worse; and 
the worst change of all . . . no, she would not 



LORD MELBOURNE 129 

hear of it; it would be quite intolerable, it would 
upset everything, if she were to marry. And yet 
everyone seemed to want her to — the general pub- 
lic, the Ministers, her Saxe-Coburg relations — it 
was always the same story. Of course, she knew 
very well that there were excellent reasons for it. 
For one thing, if she remained childless, and were 
to die, her uncle Cumberland, who was now the 
King of Hanover, would succeed to the Throne 
of England. That, no doubt, would be a most 
unpleasant event; and she entirely sympathised 
with everybody who wished to avoid it. But there 
was no hurry; naturally, she would marry in the 
end — but not just yet — not for three or four years. 
What was tiresome was that her uncle Leopold 
had apparently determined, not only that she 
ought to marry, but that her cousin Albert ought 
to be her husband. That was very like her uncle 
Leopold, who wanted to have a finger in every 
pie; and it was true that long ago, in far-off days, 
before her accession even, she had written to him in 
a way which might well have encouraged him in 
such a notion. She had told him then that Albert 
possessed " every quality that could be desired to 
render her perfectly happy," and had begged her 
" dearest uncle to take care of the health of one, 
now so dear to me, and to take him under your 



130 QUEEN VICTORIA 

special protection," adding, " I hope and trust all 
will go on prosperously and well on this subject 
of so much importance to me." ^ But that had 
been years ago, when she was a mere child; per- 
haps, indeed, to judge from the language, the 
letter had been dictated by Lehzen; at any rate, 
her feelings, and all the circumstances, had now 
entirely changed. Albert hardly interested her 
at all. 

In later life the Queen declared that she had 
never for a moment dreamt of marrying anyone 
but her cousin ; ^ her letters and diaries tell a very 
different story. On August 26, 1837, she wrote 
in her journal: " To-day is my dearest cousin 
Albert's 18th birthday, and I pray Heaven to 
pour its choicest blessings on his beloved head ! " 
In the subsequent years, however, the date passes 
unnoticed. It had been arranged that Stockmar 
should accompany the Prince to Italy, and the 
faithful Baron left her side for that purpose. He 
wrote to her more than once with sympathetic de- 
scriptions of his young companion; but her mind 
was by this time made up. She liked and admired 
Albert very much, but she did not want to marry 
him. " At present," she told Lord Melbourne in 
April, 1839, '^ my feeling is quite against ever 

■i^ Letters, I, 49. 2 Grey, 219. 



LORD MELBOURNE 131 

marrying." ^ When her cousin's Italian tour 
came to an end, she began to grow nervous; she 
knew that, according to a long-standing engage- 
ment, his next journey would be to England. He 
would probably arrive in the autumn, and by July 
her uneasiness was intense. She determined to 
write to her uncle, in order to make her position 
clear. It must be understood she said, that " there 
is no engagement between us." If she should like 
Albert, she could " make no final promise this 
year, for, at the very earliest, any such event could 
not take place till two or three years hence." She 
had, she said, " a great repugnance " to change her 
present position; and, if she should not like him, 
she was ''very anxious that it should be under- 
stood that she would not be guilty of any breach 
of promise, for she never gave any" ' To Lord 
Melbourne she was more explicit. She told him 
that she " had no great wish to see Albert, as the 
whole subject was an odious one"; she hated to 
have to decide about it; and she repeated once 
again that seeing Albert would be " a disagreeable 
thing." ^ But there was no escaping the horrid 
business; the visit must be made, and she must 
see him. The summer slipped by and was over; 

1 Girlhood, II, 153. 2 Letters, I, 177-8. 

3 Girlhood, II, 216-6. 



132 QUEEN VICTORIA 

it was the autumn already; on the evening of 
October 10 Albert, accompanied by his brother 
Ernest, arrived at Windsor. 
, Albert arrived; and the whole structure of her 
existence crumbled into nothingness like a house 
of cards. He was beautiful — she gasped — she 
knew no more. Then, in a flash, a thousand mys- 
teries were revealed to her; the past, the present, 
rushed upon her with a new significance ; the delu- 
sions of years were abolished, and an extraordinary, 
an irresistible certitude leapt into being in the 
light of those blue eyes, the smile of that lovely 
mouth. The succeeding hours passed in a rapture. 
She was able to observe a few more details — the 
" exquisite nose," the " delicate moustachios and 
slight but very slight whiskers," the '* beautiful 
figure, broad in the shoulders and a fine waist." 
She rode with him, danced with him, talked with 
him, and it was all perfection. She had no shadow 
of a doubt. He had come on a Thursday evening, 
and on the following Sunday morning she told 
Lord Melbom'ne that she had " a good deal 
changed her opinion as to marrying." Next morn- 
ing, she told him that she had made up her mind 
to marry Albert. The morning after that, she 
sent for her cousin. She received him alone, and 
" after a few minutes I said to him that I thought 



LORD MELBOURNE 133 

he must be aware why I wished them to come 
here — and that it would make me too happy if 
be would consent to what I wished (to marry 
me)." Then "we embraced each other, and he 
was 80 kind, so affectionate." She said that she 
was quite unworthy of him, while he murmured^ 
that he would be very happy " Das Leben mit dir 
zu zubringen." They parted, and she felt " the 
happiest of human beings," when Lord M. came 
in. At first she beat about the bush, and talked 
of the weather, and indifferent subjects. Some- 
how or other she felt a little nervous with her old 
friend. At last, summoning up her courage, she 
said, " I have got well through this with Albert." 
" Oh! you have," said Lord M.^ 

1 Girlhood, II, 262-9. Greville's statement (Nov. 27, 1839) that 
" the Queen settled everything about her marriage herself, and 
without consulting Melbourne at all on the subject, not even com- 
municating to him her intention," has no foundation in fact. The 
Queen's journal proves that she consulted Melbourne at every point. 



CHAPTER IV 
MARRIAGE 

I 
It was decidedly a family match. Prince Francis 
Charles Augustus Albert Emmanuel of Saxe- 
Coburg-Gotha — for such was his full title — had 
been born just three months after his cousin Vic- 
toria, and the same midwife had assisted at the 
two births. The children's grandmother, the Dow- 
ager Duchess of Coburg, had from the first looked 
forward to their marriage; as they grew up, the 
Duke, the Duchess of Kent, and King Leopold 
came equally to desire it. The Prince, ever since 
the time when, as a child of three, his nurse had 
told him that some day "the little English May 
flower " would be his wife, had never thought of 
marrying anyone else. When eventually Baron 
Stockmar himself signified his assent, the affair 
seemed as good as settled.^ 

The Duke had one other child — Prince Ernest, 
Albert's senior by one year, and heir to the prin- 
cipality. The Duchess was a sprightly and beau- 

1 Martin, I, 1-2; Grey, 21^^. 

134 




Copyright of H.M. The King. 

PRINCE ALBEET IN 1840. 
From the Portrait by John Partridge. 



MARRIAGE 135 

tiful woman, with fair hair and blue eyes; Albert 
was very like her and was her declared favourite. 
But in his fifth year he was parted from her for 
ever. The ducal court was not noted for the 
strictness of its morals; the Duke was a man of 
gallantry, and it was rumoured that the Duchess 
followed her husband's example. There were 
scandals : one of the Court Chamberlains, a charm- 
ing and cultivated man of Jewish extraction, was 
talked of; at last there was a separation, followed 
by a divorce. The Duchess retired to Paris, and 
died unhappily in 1831. Her memory was always 
very dear to Albert.^ 

He grew up a pretty, clever, and high-spirited 
boy. Usually well-behaved, he was, however, some- 
times violent. He had a will of his own, and as- 
serted it; his elder brother was less passionate, less 
purposeful, and, in their wrangles, it was Albert 
who came out top. The two boys, living for the 
most part in one or other of the Duke's country 
houses, among pretty hills and woods and streams, 
had been at a very early age — Albert was less than 
four — separated from their nurses and put under 
a tutor, in whose charge they remained until they 
went to the University. They were brought up 
in a simple and unostentatious manner, for the 

iGrey, 7-9; Crawford, 245-6; Panam, 256-7. 



136 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Duke was poor and the duchy very small and very 
insignificant. Before long it became evident that 
Albert was a model lad. Intelligent and pains- 
taking, he had been touched by the moral earnest- 
ness of his generation ; at the age of eleven he sur- 
prised his father by telling him that he hoped to 
make himself " a good and useful man." And yet 
he was not over-serious ; though, perhaps, he had 
little humour, he was full, of fun — of practical 
jokes and mimicry. He was no milksop; he rode, 
and shot, and fenced; above all did he delight in 
being out of doors, and never was he happier than 
in his long rambles with his brother through the 
wild country round his beloved Rosenau — stalking 
the deer, admiring the scenery, and returning laden 
with specimens for his natural history collection. 
He was, besides, passionately fond of music. In 
one particular it was observed that he did not take 
after his father: owing either to his peculiar up- 
bringing or to a more fundamental idiosyncrasy 
he had a marked distaste for the opposite sex. At 
the age of five, at a children's dance, he screamed 
with disgust and anger when a little girl was led 
up to him for a partner; and though, later on, he 
grew more successful in disguising such feelings, 
the feelings remained.^ 

iGrey, chaps, i to vi; Ernest, I, 18-23. 



MARRIAGE 137 

The brothers were very popular in Coburg, and, 
when the time came for them to be confirmed, the 
prehminary examination which, according to an- 
cient custom, was held in public in the " Giants' 
Hall " of the Castle, was attended by an enthusi- 
astic crowd of functionaries, clergy, delegates 
from the villages of the duchy, and miscellaneous 
onlookers. There were also present, besides the 
Duke and the Dowager Duchess, their Serene 
Highnesses the Princes Alexander and Ernest of 
Wiirtemberg, Prince Leiningen, Princess Hohen- 
lohe-Langenburg, and Princess Hohenlohe-Schil- 
lingsfiirst. Dr. Jacobi, the Court chaplain, pre- 
sided at an altar, simply but appropriately deco- 
rated, which had been placed at the end of the 
hall; and the proceedings began by the choir sing- 
ing the first verse of the hymn, "Come, Holy 
Ghost." After some introductory remarks. Dr. 
Jacobi began the examination. " The dignified 
and decorous bearing of the Princes," we are told 
in a contemporary account, " their strict attention 
to the questions, the frankness, decision, and cor- 
rectness of their answers, produced a deep im- 
pression on the numerous assembly. Nothing was 
more striking in their answers than the evidence 
they gave of deep feeling and of inward strength 
of conviction. The questions put by the examiner 



138 QUEEN VICTORIA 

were not such as to be met by a simple " yes " or 
" no." They were carefully considered in order 
to give the audience a clear insight into the views 
and feelings of the young princes. One of the 
most touching moments was when the examiner 
asked the hereditary prince whether he intended 
steadfastly to hold to the Evangelical Church, and 
the Prince answered not only " Yes ! " but added 
in a clear and decided tone: " I and my brother 
are firmly resolved ever to remain faithful to the 
acknowledged truth." The examination having 
lasted an hour, Dr. Jacobi made some concluding 
observations, followed by a short prayer; the sec- 
ond and third verses of the opening hymn were 
sung; and the ceremony was over. The Princes, 
stepping down from the altar, were embraced by 
the Duke and the Dowager Duchess; after which 
the loyal inhabitants of Coburg dispersed, well 
satisfied with their entertainment.^ 

Albert's mental development now proceeded 
apace. In his seventeenth year he began a careful 
study of German literature and German philoso- 
phy. He set about, he told his tutor, " to follow 
the thoughts of the great Klopstock into their 
depths — though in this, for the most part," he 
modestly added, " I do not succeed." He wrote 

1 Grey, App. B. 



MARRIAGE 139 

an essay on the " Mode of Thought of the Ger- 
mans, and a Sketch of the History of German 
Civilisation," " making use," he said, " in its gen- 
eral outlines, of the divisions which the treatment 
of the subject itself demands," and concluding with 
" a retrospect of the shortcomings of our time, 
with an appeal to every one to correct those short- 
comings in his own case, and thus set a good exam- 
ple to others." ^ Placed for some months under 
the care of King Leopold at Brussels, he came 
under the influence of Adolphe Quetelet, a math- 
ematical professor, who was particularly inter- 
ested in the application of the laws of probability 
to political and moral phenomena; this line of 
inquiry attracted the Prince, and the friendship 
thus begun continued till the end of his life.^ From 
Brussels he went to the University of Bonn, where 
he was speedily distinguished both by his intel- 
lectual and his social activities; his energies were 
absorbed in metaphysics, law, political economy, 
music, fencing, and amateur theatricals. Thirty 
years later his fellow-students recalled with delight 
the fits of laughter into which they had been sent 
by Prince Albert's mimicry. The verve with which 
his Serene Highness reproduced the tones and 
gestures of one of the professors who used to point 

iGrey, 124S-7. aGossart; Ernest, I, 72-3. 



140 QUEEN VICTORIA 

to a picture of a row of houses in Venice with the 
remark, " That is the Ponte Realte," and of an- 
other who fell down in a race and was obliged to 
look for his spectacles, was especially appre- 
ciated/ 

After a year at Bonn, the time had come for a 
foreign tour, and Baron Stockmar arrived from 
England to accompany the Prince on an expedi- 
tion to Italy. The Baron had been already, two 
years previously, consulted by King Leopold as 
to his views upon the proposed marriage of Albert 
and Victoria. His reply had been remarkable. 
With a characteristic foresight, a characteristic 
absence of optimism, a characteristic sense of the 
moral elements in the situation, Stockmar had 
pointed out what were, in his opinion, the condi- 
tions essential to make the marriage a success. 
Albert, he wrote, was a fine young fellow, well 
grown for his age, with agreeable and valuable 
qualities; and it was probable that in a few years 
he would turn out a strong handsome man, of a 
kindly, simple, yet dignified demeanour. " Thus, 
externally, he possesses all that pleases the sex, 
and at all times and in all countries must please." 
Supposing, therefore, that Victoria herself was in 
favour of the marriage, the further question arose 

1 Grey, 16&-73. 



MARRIAGE 141 

as to whether Albert's mental qualities were such 
as to fit him for the position of husband of the 
Queen of England. On this point, continued the 
Baron, one heard much to his credit; the Prince 
was said to be discreet and intelligent; but all such 
judgments were necessarily partial, and the Baron 
preferred to reserve his opinion until he could 
come to a trustworthy conclusion from personal 
observation. And then he added: " But all this is 
not enough. The young man ought to have not 
merely great abihty, but a right ambition, and 
great force of will as well. To pursue for a life- 
time a political career so arduous demands more 
than energy and inclination — it demands also that 
earnest frame of mind which is ready of its own 
accord to sacrifice mere pleasure to real useful- 
ness. If he is not satisfied hereafter with the con- 
sciousness of having achieved one of the most influ- 
ential positions in Europe, how often will he feel 
tempted to repent his adventure! If he does not 
from the very outset accept it as a vocation of 
grave responsibility, on the efficient performance 
of which his honour and happiness depend, there 
is small likelihood of his succeeding." ^ 

Such were the views of Stockmar on the qualifi- 
cations necessary for the due fulfilment of that 

1 stockmar, 310. 



142 QUEENVICTORIA 

destiny which Albert's family had marked out for 
him; and he hoped, during the tour in Italy, to 
come to some conclusion as to how far the Prince 
possessed them. Albert on his side was much im- 
pressed by the Baron, whom he had previously 
seen but rarely; he also became acquainted, for 
the first time in his life, with a young Englishman, 
Lieut. Francis Seymour, who had been engaged 
to accompany him, whom he found selir liehens- 
wiirdig, and with whom he struck up a warm 
friendship. He delighted in the galleries and 
scenery of Florence, though with Rome he was 
less impressed. " But for some beautiful palaces," 
he said, " it might just as well be any town in 
Germany." In an interview with Pope Gregory 
XVI, he took the opportunity of displaying his 
erudition. When the Pope observed that the 
Greeks had taken their art from the Etruscans, 
Albert replied that, on the contrary, in his opin- 
ion, they had borrowed from the Egyptians: his 
Holiness politely acquiesced. Wherever he went 
he was eager to increase his knowledge, and, at a 
ball in Florence, he was observed paying no atten- 
tion whatever to the ladies, and deep in conver- 
sation with the learned Signor Capponi. " Voila 
un prince dont nous pouvons etre fiers," said 
the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was standing 



MARRIAGE 143 

by: "la belle danseuse I'attend, le savant I'oc- 
cupe." ' 

On his return to Germany, Stockmar's observa- 
tions, imparted to King Leopold, were still criti- 
cal. Albert, he said, v/as intelligent, kind, and 
amiable; he was full of the best intentions and the 
noblest resolutions, and his judgment was in many 
things beyond his years. But great exertion was 
repugnant to him; he seemed to be too willing to 
spare himself, and his good resolutions too often 
came to nothing. It was particularly unfortunate 
that he took not the slightest interest in politics, 
and never read a newspaper. In his manners, too, 
there was still room for improvement. " He will 
always," said the Baron, " have more success with 
men than with women, in whose society he shows 
too little empressement, and is too indifferent and 
retiring." One other feature of the case was noted 
by the keen eye of the old physician: the Prince's 
constitution was not a strong one.^ Yet, on the 
whole, he was favourable to the projected mar- 
riage. But by now the chief obstacle seemed to 
he in another quarter, Victoria was apparently 
determined to commit herself to nothing. And so 
it happened that when Albert went to England 
he had made up his mind to withdraw entirely 

1 Grey, 133, 416, 416, 419. 2 Stockmar, 331-2. 



144. QUEEN VICTORIA 

from the affair. Nothing would induce him, he 
confessed to a friend, to be kept vaguely waiting; 
he would break it all off at once. His reception 
at Windsor threw an entirely new light upon the 
situation. The wheel of fortune turned with a 
sudden rapidity; and he found, in the arms of 
Victoria, the irrevocable assurance of his over- 
whelming fate.^ 

II 

He was not in love with her. Affection, grati- 
tude, the natural reactions to the unqualified devo- 
tion of a lively young cousin who was also a queen 
— such feelings possessed him, but the ardours of 
reciprocal passion were not his. Though he found 
that he liked Victoria very much, what imme- 
diately interested him in his curious position was 
less her than himself. Dazzled and delighted, 
riding, dancing, singing, laughing, amid the splen- 
dours of Windsor, he was aware of a new sensa- 
tion — the stirrings of ambition in his breast. His 
place would indeed be a high, an enviable one! 
And then, on the instant, came another thought. 
The teaching of religion, the admonitions of Stock- 
mar, his own inmost convictions, all spoke with 
the same utterance. He would not be there to 

1 Grey, 425. 



MARRIAGE 145 

please himself, but for a very different purpose — 
to do good. He must be " noble, manly, and 
princely in all things," he would have " to live 
and to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his new 
country"; to "use his powers and endeavours 
for a great object — that of promoting the welfare 
of multitudes of his fellowmen." One serious 
thought led on to another. The wealth and the 
bustle of the English Court might be delightful 
for the moment, but, after all, it was Coburg that 
had his heart. " While I shall be untiring," he 
wrote to his grandmother, " in my efforts and 
labours for the country to which I shall in future 
belong, and where I am called to so high a posi- 
tion, I shall never cease ein treuer Deutscher, Co- 
burger, Gothaner zu sein" And now he must 
part from Coburg for ever! Sobered and sad, 
he sought relief in his brother Ernest's company; 
the two young men would shut themselves up to- 
gether, and, sitting down at the pianoforte, would 
escape from the present and the future in the 
sweet familiar gaiety of a Haydn duet.^ 

They returned to Germany; and while Albert, 
for a few farewell months, enjoyed, for the last 
time, the happiness of home, Victoria, for the last 
time, resumed her old Hfe in London and Wind- 

iGrey, 421-5; Letters, I, 188. 



146 QUEEN VICTORIA 

sor. She corresponded daily with her future hus- 
band in a mingled flow of German and English; 
but the accustomed routine reasserted itself; the 
business and the pleasures of the day would brook 
no interruption; Lord M. was once more constantly 
beside her; and the Tories were as intolerable as 
ever. Indeed, they were more so. For now, in 
these final moments, the old feud burst out with 
redoubled fury.^ The impetuous sovereign found, 
to her chagrin, that there might be disadvantages 
in being the declared enemy of one of the great 
parties in the State. On two occasions, the Tories 
directly thwarted her in a matter on which she had 
set her heart. She wished her husband's rank to 
be fixed by statute, and their opposition prevented 
it. She wished her husband to receive a settlement 
from the nation of £50,000 a year; and, again 
owing to the Tories, he was only allowed £30,000. 
It was too bad. When the question was discussed 
in Parliament, it had been pointed out that the 
bulk of the population was suffering from great 



1 " I had much talk with Lady Cowper about the Court. She 
lamented the obstinate character of the Queen, from which she 
thought that hereafter great evils might be apprehended. She said 
that her prejudices and antipathies were deep and strong, and 
her disposition very inflexible. Her hatred of Peel and her resent- 
ment against the Duke for having sided with him rather than with 
her in the old quarrel are unabated." Greville, November 3, 1839 
(unpublished). 



MARRIAGE 14.7 

poverty, and that £30,000 was the whole revenue 
of Coburg; but her uncle Leopold had been given 
£50,000, and it would be monstrous to give Albert 
less. Sir Robert Peel — it might have been ex- 
pected — had had the effrontery to speak and vote 
- for the smaller sum. She was very angry; and 
determined to revenge herself by omitting to in- 
vite a single Tory to her wedding. She would 
make an exception in favour of old Lord Liver- 
pool, but even the Duke of Wellington she refused 
to ask. When it was represented to her that it 
would amount to a national scandal if the Duke 
were absent from her wedding, she was angrier 
than ever. "What! That old rebel! I won't have 
him," she was reported to have said. Eventually 
she was induced to send him an invitation; but 
she made no attempt to conceal the bitterness of 
her feelings, and the Duke himself was only too 
well aware of all that had passed.^ 

Nor was it only against the Tories that her irri- 
tation rose. As the time for her wedding ap- 
proached, her temper grew steadily sharper and 
more arbitrary. Queen Adelaide annoyed her. 
King Leopold, too, was " ungracious " in his cor- 
respondence; "Dear Uncle," she told Albert, "is 
given to believe that he must rule the roost every- 

iGreville, January 29, February 15, 184iO (unpublished). 



148 QUEEN VICTORIA 

where. However," she added with asperity, " that 
is not a necessity." ^ Even Albert himself was 
not impeccable. Engulfed in Coburgs, he failed 
to appreciate the complexity of English affairs. 
There were difficulties about his household. He 
had a notion that he ought not to be surrounded 
by violent Whigs; very likely, but he would not 
understand that the only alternatives to violent 
Whigs were violent Tories; and it would be pre- 
posterous if his Lords and Gentlemen were to be 
found voting against the Queen's. He wanted to 
appoint his own Private Secretary. But how 
could he choose the right person? Lord M. was 
obviously best qualified to make the appointment; 
and Lord M. had decided that the Prince should 
take over his own Private Secretary — George 
Anson, a staunch Whig. Albert protested, but it 
was useless ; Victoria simply announced that Anson 
was appointed, and instructed Lehzen to send the 
Prince an explanation of the details of the case. 
Then, again, he had written anxiously upon the 
necessity of maintaining unspotted the moral 
purity of the Court. Lord M.'s pupil considered 
that dear Albert was strait-laced, and, in a brisk 
Anglo-German missive, set forth her own views. 
" I like Lady A. very much," she told him, " only 

-^Letters, I, 201. 



MARRIAGE 149 

she is a little strict and particular, and too severe 
towards others, which is not right; for I think one 
ought always to be indulgent towards other peo- 
ple, as I always think, if we had not been well 
taken care of, we might also have gone astray. 
That is always my feeling. Yet it is always right 
to show that one does not like to see what is obvi- 
ously wrong; but it is very dangerous to be too 
severe, and I am certain that as a rule such people 
always greatly regret that in their youth they 
have not been so careful as they ought to have 
been. I have explained this so badly and written 
it so badly, that I fear you will hardly be able to 
make it out." ^ 

On one other matter she was insistent. Since 
the affair of Lady Flora Hastings, a sad fate had 
overtaken Sir James Clark. His flourishing prac- 
tice had quite collapsed; nobody would go to him 
any more. But the Queen remained faithful. She 
would show the world how little she cared for 
their disapproval, and she desired Albert to make 
" poor Clark " his physician in ordinary. He did 
as he was told; but, as it turned out, the appoint- 
ment was not a happy one.^ 

The wedding-day was fixed, and it was time 

^Letters, I, 200-8; Girlhood, II, 287. 

2 Dictionary of National Biography, Art. Sir James Clark ; 
Letters, I, 202. 



150 QUEEN VICTORIA 

for Albert to tear himself away from his family 
and the scenes of his childhood. With an aching 
heart, he had revisited his beloved haunts — the 
woods and the valleys where he had spent so many 
happy hours shooting rabbits and collecting botan- 
ical specimens; in deep depression, he had sat 
through the farewell banquets in the Palace and 
listened to the Freischutz performed by the State 
band. It was time to go. The streets were packed 
as he drove through them; for a short space his 
eyes were gladdened by a sea of friendly German 
faces, and his ears by a gathering volume of good 
guttural sounds. He stopped to bid a last adieu 
to his grandmother. It was a heartrending mo- 
ment. "Albert! Albert!" she shrieked, and fell 
fainting into the arms of her attendants as his 
carriage drove away. He was whirled rapidly to 
his destiny. At Calais a steamboat awaited him, 
and, together with his father and his brother, he 
stepped, dejected, on board. A little later, he 
was more dejected still. The crossing was a very 
rough one; the Duke went hurriedly below; while 
the two Princes, we are told, lay on either side of 
the cabin staircase "in an almost helpless state." 
At Dover a large crowd was collected on the pier, 
and " it was by no common effort that Prince 
Albert, who had continued to suffer up to the last 



MARRIAGE 151 

moment, got up to bow to the people." His sense 
of duty triumphed. It was a curious omen: his 
whole life in England was foreshadowed as he 
landed on English ground.^ 

Meanwhile Victoria, in growing agitation, was 
a prey to temper and to nerves. She grew fever- 
ish, and at last Sir James Clark pronounced that 
she was going to have the measles. But, once 
again. Sir James's diagnosis was incorrect. It was 
not the measles that were attacking her, but a 
very different malady; she was suddenly pros- 
trated by alarm, regret, and doubt. For two years 
she had been her own mistress — the two happiest 
years, by far, of her life. And now it was all 
to end! She was to come under an alien domina- 
tion — she would have to promise that she would 
honour and obey . . . someone, who might, after 
all, thwart her, oppose her — and how dreadful that 
would be! Why had she embarked on this haz- 
ardous experiment? Why had she not been con- 
tented with Lord M. ? No doubt, she loved Albert ; 
but she loved power too. At any rate, one thing 
was certain: she might be Albert's wife, but she 
would always be Queen of England.^ He reap- 
peared, in an exquisite uniform, and her hesita- 

iGrey, 292-303. 

2Greville, February 16, 1840 (unpublished). 



152 QUEEN VICTORIA 

tions melted in his presence like mist before the 
sun. On February 10, 1840, the marriage took 
place. The wedded pair drove down to Windsor; 
but they were not, of course, entirely alone. They 
were accompanied by their suites, and, in particu- 
lar, by two persons — the Baron Stockmar and the 
Baroness Lehzen. 



ni 

Albert had foreseen that his married life would 
not be all plain sailing; but he had by no means 
realised the gravity and the complication of the 
difficulties which he would have to face. Politi- 
cally, he was a cipher. Lord Melbourne was not 
only Prime Minister, he was in effect the Private 
Secretary of the Queen, and thus controlled the 
whole of the political existence of the sovereign. 
A queen's husband was an entity unknown to the 
British Constitution. In State affairs there seemed 
to be no place for him; nor was Victoria herself at 
all unwilling that this should be so. " The Eng- 
lish," she had told the Prince when, during their 
engagement, a proposal had been made to give 
him a peerage, " are very jealous of any foreigner 
interfering in the government of this country, and 
have already in some of the papers expressed a 



MARRIAGE 153 

hope that you would not interfere. Now, though 
I know you never would, still, if you were a Peer, 
they would all say, the Prince meant to play a 
political part." ^ " I know you never would! " In 
reality, she was not quite so certain ; but she wished 
Albert to understand her views. He would, she 
hoped, make a perfect husband; but, as for gov- 
erning the country, he would see that she and 
Lord M. between them could manage that very 
well, without his help. 

But it was not only in politics that the Prince 
discovered that the part cut out for him was a 
negligible one. Even as a husband, he found, his 
functions were to be of an extremely limited kind. 
Over the whole of Victoria's private life the Bar- 
oness reigned supreme ; and she had not the slight- 
est intention of allowing that supremacy to be 
diminished by one iota. Since the accession, her 
power had greatty increased. Besides the unde- 
fined and enormous influence which she exercised 
through her management of the Queen's private 
correspondence, she was now the superintendent 
of the royal establishment and controlled the im- 
portant office of Privy Purse.^ Albert very soon 
perceived that he was not master in his own house.^ 
Every detail of his own and his wife's existence 

1 Letters, I, 199. 2 Martin, I, Tl, 153. a Grey, 319-20. 



154j queen victoria 

was supervised by a third person: nothing could 
be done until the consent of Lehzen had first been 
obtained. And Victoria, who adored Lehzen with 
unabated intensity, saw nothing in all this that was 
wrong. 

Nor was the Prince happier in his social sur- 
roundings. A shy young foreigner, awkward in 
ladies' company, unexpansive and self-opinionated, 
it was improbable that, in any circumstances, he 
would have been a society success. His appear- 
ance, too, was against him. Though in the eyes 
of Victoria he was the mirror of manly beauty, 
her subjects, whose eyes were of a less Teutonic 
cast, did not agree with her. To them — and par- 
ticularly to the high-born ladies and gentlemen 
who naturally saw him most — what was immedi- 
'ately and distressingly striking in Albert's face 
and figure and whole demeanour was his un-Eng- 
lish look. His features were regular, no doubt, 
but there was something smooth and smug about 
them; he was tall, but he was clumsily put to- 
gether, and he walked with a slight slouch. Really, 
they thought, this youth was more like some kind 
of foreign tenor than anything else. These were 
serious disadvantages; but the line of conduct 
which the Prince adopted from the first moment 
of his arrival was far from calculated to dispel 



MARRIAGE 155 

them. Owing partly to a natural awkwardness, 
partly to a fear of undue familiarity, and partly 
to a desire to be absolutely correct, his manners 
were infused with an extraordinary stiffness and 
formality. Whenever he appeared in company, 
he seemed to be surrounded by a thick hedge of 
prickly etiquette. He never went out into ordi- 
nary society; he never walked in the streets of 
London; he was invariably accompanied by an 
equerry when he rode or drove. He wanted to be 
irreproachable and, if that involved friendlessness, 
it could not be helped. Besides, he had no very 
high opinion of the Enghsh. So far as he could 
see, they cared for nothing but fox-hunting and 
Sunday observances; they oscillated between an 
undue frivolity and an undue gloom ; if you spoke 
to them of friendly joyousness they stared; and^ 
they did not understand either the Laws of 
Thought or the wit of a German University. 
Since it was clear that with such people he could 
have very little in common, there was no reason 
whatever for relaxing in their favour the rules of 
etiquette. In strict privacy, he could be natural 
and charming; Seymour and Anson were devoted 
to him, and he returned their affection; but they 
were subordinates — the receivers of his confidences 
and the agents of his will. From the support and 



156 QUEEN VICTORIA 

the solace of true companionship he was utterly 
cut off/ 

A friend, indeed, he had — or rather, a mentor. 
The Baron, established once more in the royal 
residence, was determined to work with as whole- 
hearted a detachment for the Prince's benefit as, 
more than twenty years before, he had worked for 
his uncle's. The situations then and now, similar 
in many respects, were yet full of differences. 
Perhaps in either case the difficulties to be encoun- 
tered were equally great; but the present prob- 
lem was the more complex and the more interest- 
ing. The young doctor who, unknown and insig- 
nificant, had nothing at the back of him but his 
own wits and the friendship of an unimportant 
Prince, had been replaced by the accomplished 
confidant of kings and ministers, ripe in years, in 
reputation, and in the wisdom of a vast experi- 
ence. It was possible for him to treat Albert with 
something of the affectionate authority of a father ; 
but, on the other hand, Albert was no Leopold. 
As the Baron was very well aware, he had none 
of his uncle's rigidity of ambition, none of his over- 
weening impulse to be personally great. He was 
virtuous and well-intentioned; he was clever and 

iGreville, April 3, 1840 (unpublished); Grey, 353-^; Ernest, 
I, 93-^. 



MARRIAGE 157 

well-informed; but he took no interest in politics, 
and there were no signs that he possessed any com- 
manding force of character. Left to himself, he 
would almost certainly have subsided into a high- 
minded nonentity, an aimless dilettante busy over 
culture, a palace appendage without influence or 
power. But he was not left to himself: Stockmar 
saw to that. For ever at his pupil's elbow, the 
hidden Baron pushed him forward, with tireless 
pressure, along the path which had been trod by 
Leopold so many years ago. But, this time, the 
goal at the end of it was something more than the 
mediocre royalty that Leopold had reached. The 
prize which Stockmar, with all the energy of dis- 
interested devotion, had determined should be 
Albert's was a tremendous prize indeed. 

The beginning of the undertaking proved to be 
the most arduous part of it. Albert was easily 
dispirited: what was the use of struggling to per- 
form in a role which bored him and which, it was 
quite clear, nobody but the dear good Baron had 
any desire that he should take up? It was sim- 
pler, and it saved a great deal of trouble, to let 
things slide. But Stockmar would not have it.^ 
Incessantly, he harped upon two strings — Albert's 
sense of duty and his personal pride. Had the 

1 stockmar, 351. 



158 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Prince forgotten the noble aims to which his life 
was to be devoted? And was he going to allow 
himself, his wife, his family, his whole existence, 
to be governed by Baroness Lehzen? The latter 
consideration was a potent one. Albert had never 
been accustomed to giving way; and now, more 
than ever before, it would be humiliating to do 
so. Not only was he constantly exasperated by 
the position of the Baroness in the royal house- 
hold; there was another and a still more serious 
cause of complaint. He was, he knew very well, 
his wife's intellectual superior, and yet he found, 
to his intense annoyance, that there were parts of 
her mind over which he exercised no influence. 
When, urged on by the Baron, he attempted to 
discuss politics with Victoria, she eluded the sub- 
ject, drifted into generalities, and then began to 
talk of something else. She was treating him as 
she had once treated their uncle Leopold. When 
at last he protested, she replied that her conduct 
was merely the result of indolence; that when she 
was with him she could not bear to bother her 
head with anything so dull as politics. The ex- 
cuse was worse than the fault: was he the wife 
and she the husband? It almost seemed so. But 
the Baron declared that the root of the mischief 
was Lehzen: that it was she who encouraged the 



MARRIAGE 159 

Queen to have secrets; who did worse — under- 
mined the natural ingenuousness of Victoria, and 
induced her to give, unconsciously no doubt, false 
reasons to explain away her conduct/ 

Minor disagreements made matters worse. The 
royal couple differed in their tastes. Albert, 
brought up in a regime of Spartan simplicity 
and early hours, found the great Court functions 
intolerably wearisome, and was invariably ob- 
served to be nodding on the sofa at half-past ten ; 
while the Queen's favourite form of enjoyment 
was to dance through the night, and then, going 
out into the portico of the Palace, watch the sun 
rise behind St. Paul's and the towers of West- 
minster.^ She loved London and he detested it. 
It was only in Windsor that he felt he could really 
breathe; but Windsor too had its terrors: though 
during the day there he could paint and walk and 
play on the piano, after dinner black tedium de- 
scended like a pall. He would have liked to sum- 
mon distinguished scientific and literary men to his 
presence, and after ascertaining their views upon 
various points of art and learning, to set forth his 
own; but unfortunately Victoria " had no fancy to 
encourage such people " ; knowing that she was 
unequal to taking a part in their conversation, 

1 Letters, I, 224-. 2 Bloomfield, I, 19. 



160 QUEEN VICTORIA 

she insisted that the evening routine should remain 
unaltered ; the regulation interchange of platitudes 
with official persons was followed as usual by the 
round table and the books of engravings, while 
the Prince, with one of his attendants, played 
game after game of double chess.^ 

It was only natural that in so peculiar a situa- 
tion, in which the elements of power, passion, and 
pride were so strangely apportioned, there should 
have been occasionally something more than mere 
irritation — a struggle of angry wills. Victoria, no 
more than Albert, was in the habit of playing sec- 
ond fiddle. Her arbitrary temper flashed out. 
Her vitality, her obstinacy, her overweening sense 
of her own position, might well have beaten down 
before them his superiorities and his rights. But 
she fought at a disadvantage; she was, in very 
truth, no longer her own mistress; a profound 
preoccupation dominated her, seizing upon her 
inmost purposes for its own extraordinary ends. 
She was madly in love. The details of those curi- 
ous battles are unknown to us ; but Prince Ernest, 
who remained in England with his brother for 
some months, noted them with a friendly and 
startled eye.^ One story, indeed, survives, ill- 
authenticated and perhaps mythical, yet summing 

iGrey, 340; Letters, 1, 256. 2 Ernest, I, 93. 



MARRIAGE 161 

up, as such stories often do, the central facts of 
the case. When, in wrath, the Prince one day 
had locked himself into his room, Victoria, no less 
furious, knocked on the door to be admitted. 
*' Who is there? " he asked. " The Queen of Eng- 
land " was the answer. He did not move, and 
again there was a hail of knocks. The question 
and the answer were repeated many times; but at 
last there was a pause, and then a gentler knock- 
ing. " Who is there? " came once more the relent- 
less question. But this time the reply was differ- 
ent. "Your wife, Albert." And the door was 
immediately opened.^ 

Very gradually the Prince's position changed. 
He began to find the study of politics less uninter- 
esting than he had supposed; he read Blackstone, 
and took lessons in EngHsh Law ; he was occasion- 
ally present when the Queen interviewed her Min- 
isters ; and at Lord Melbourne's suggestion he was 
shown all the despatches relating to Foreign Af- 
fairs. Sometimes he would commit his views to 
paper, and read them aloud to the Prime Minis- 
ter, who, infinitely kind and courteous, listened 
with attention, but seldom made any reply .^ An 
important step was taken when, before the birth 
of the Princess Royal, the Prince, without any 

iJerrold, Married Life, 56. 2 Grey 320-1, 361-2. 



162 QUEEN VICTORIA 

opposition in Parliament, was appointed Regent 
in case of the death of the Queen/ Stockmar, 
owing to whose intervention with the Tories this 
happy result had been brought about, now felt 
himself at liberty to take a holiday with his family 
in Coburg; but his solicitude, poured out in innu- 
merable letters, still watched over his pupil from 
afar. " Dear Prince," he wrote, " I am satisfied 
with the news you have sent me. Mistakes, mis- 
understandings, obstructions, which come in vexa- 
tious opposition to one's views, are always to be 
taken for just what they are — namely, natural 
phenomena of life, which represent one of its sides, 
and that the shady one. In overcoming them with 
dignity, your mind has to exercise, to train, to 
enlighten itself; and your character to gain force, 
endurance, and the necessary hardness." The 
Prince had done well so far; but he must continue 
in the right path ; above all, he was " never to 
relax." — " Never to relax in putting your mag- 
nanimity to the proof; never to relax in logical 
separation of what is great and essential from 
what is trivial and of no moment; never to relax 
in keeping yourself up to a high standard — in the 
determination, daily renewed, to be consistent, pa- 
tient, courageous." It was a hard programme, 

1 stockmar, 352-7. 



MARRIAGE 163 

perhaps, for a young man of twenty-one; and yet 
there was something in it which touched the very 
depths of Albert's soul. He sighed, but he lis- 
tened — listened as to the voice of a spiritual direc- 
tor inspired with divine truth. " The stars which 
are needful to you now," the voice continued, 
" and perhaps for some time to come, are Love, 
Honesty, Truth. All those whose minds are 
warped, or who are destitute of true feeling, will 
he apt to mistake you," and to persuade them- 
selves and the world that you are not the man 
you are — or, at least, may become. . . . Do you, 
therefore, be on the alert betimes, with your eyes 
open in every direction. ... I wish for my Prince 
a great, noble, warm, and true heart, such as shall 
serve as the richest and surest basis for the noblest 
views of human nature, and the firmest resolve to 
give them development." ^ 

Before long, the decisive moment came. There 
was a General Election, and it became certain that 
the Tories, at last, must come into power. The 
Queen disliked them as much as ever; but, with a 
large majority in the House of Commons, they 
would now be in a position to insist upon their 
wishes being attended to. Lord Melbourne him- 
self was the first to realise the importance of car- 

1 Martin, I, 90-2. 



164> QUEEN VICTORIA 

rying out the inevitable transition with as httle 
friction as possible; and with his consent, the 
Prince, following up the rapprochement which had 
begun over the Regency Act, opened, through 
Anson, a negotiation with Sir Robert Peel. In 
a series of secret interviews, a complete under- 
standing was reached upon the difficult and com- 
plex question of the Bedchamber. It was agreed 
that the constitutional point should not be raised, 
but that on the formation of the Tory Govern- 
ment, the principal Whig ladies should retire, and 
their places be filled by others appointed by Sir 
Robert.^ Thus, in effect, though not in form, the 
Crown abandoned the claims of 1839, and they 
have never been subsequently put forward. The 
transaction was a turning point in the Prince's 
career. He had conducted an important negotia- 
tion with skill and tact; he had been brought into 
close and friendly relations with the new Prime 
Minister; it was obvious that a great political 
future lay before him. Victoria was much im- 
pressed and deeply grateful. " My dearest 
Angel," she told King Leopold, " is indeed a 
great comfort to me. He takes the greatest inter- 
est in what goes on, feeling with and for me, and 
yet abstaining as ho ought from biasing me either 

1 Letters, I, 271^, 284-6. 



MARRIAGE 165 

way, though we talk much on the subject, and 
his judgment is, as you say, good and mild." ^ 
She was in need of all the comfort and assistance 
he could give her. Lord M. was going; and she 
could hardly bring herself to speak to Peel. Yes; 
she would discuss everything with Albert now! 

Stockmar, who had returned to England, 
watched the departure of Lord Melbourne with 
satisfaction. If all went well, the Prince should 
now wield a supreme political influence over Vic- 
toria. But would all go well? An unexpected 
development put the Baron into a serious fright. 
When the dreadful moment finally came, and the 
Queen, in anguish, bade adieu to her beloved Min- 
ister, it was settled between them that, though it 
would be inadvisable to meet very often, they 
could continue to correspond. Never were the 
inconsistencies of Lord Melbourne's character 
shown more clearly than in what followed. So 
long as he was in office, his attitude towards Peel 
had been irreproachable; he had done all he could 
to facilitate the change of government; he had 
even, through more than one channel, transmitted 
privately to his successful rival advice as to the 
best means of winning the Queen's good graces.^ 
Yet, no sooner was he in opposition than his heart 

I Letters, 1, 280. 2 Letters, I, 305; Greville, V, 39-40. 



166 QUEEN VICTORIA 

failed him. He could not bear the thought of sur- 
rendering altogether the privilege and the pleasure 
of giving counsel to Victoria — of being cut off 
completely from the power and the intimacy which 
had been his for so long and in such abundant 
measure. Though he had declared that he would 
be perfectly discreet in his letters, he could not 
resist taking advantage of the opening they af- 
forded. He discussed in detail various public 
questions, and, in particular, gave the Queen a 
great deal of advice in the matter of appointments. 
This advice was followed. Lord Melbourne rec- 
ommended that Lord Heytesbury, who, he said, 
was an able man, should be made Ambassador at 
Vienna; and a week later the Queen wrote to the 
Foreign Secretary urging that Lord Heytesbury, 
whom she believed to be a very able man, should 
be employed " on some important mission." Stock- 
mar was very much alarmed. He wrote a memo- 
randum, pointing out the unconstitutional nature 
of Lord Melbourne's proceedings and the unpleas- 
ant position in which the Queen might find herself 
if they were discovered by Peel ; and he instructed 
Anson to take this memorandum to the ex-Min- 
ister. Lord Melbourne, lounging on a sofa, read 
it through with compressed lips. " This is quite 
an apple-pie opinion," he said. When Anson ven- 



MARRIAGE 167 

tured to expostulate further, suggesting that it 
was unseemly in the leader of the Opposition to 
maintain an intimate relationship with the Sov- 
ereign, the old man lost his temper. " God eter- 
nally damn it!" he exclaimed, leaping up from 
his sofa, and dashing about the room. " Flesh and 
blood cannot stand this! " He continued to write 
to the Queen, as before; and two more violent 
bombardments from the Baron were needed before 
he was brought to reason. Then, gradually, his 
letters grew less and less frequent, with fewer 
and fewer references to public concerns; at last, 
they were entirely innocuous. The Baron smiled; 
Lord M. had accepted the inevitable.^ 

The Whig Ministry resigned in September, 
1841; but more than a year was to elapse before 
another and an equally momentous change was 
effected — the removal of Lehzen. For, in the 
end, the mysterious governess was conquered. 
The steps are unknown by which Victoria was at 
last led to accept her withdrawal with composure 
— perhaps with relief; but it is clear that Albert's 
domestic position must have been greatly strength- 
ened by the appearance of children. The birth of 
the Princess Royal had been followed in Novem- 
ber, 1841, by that of the Prince of Wales; and 

t Letters, I, 325-6, 329, 330-1, 339-42, 352-1, 360-3, 368. 



168 QUEEN VICTORIA 

before very long another baby was expected. The 
Baroness, with all her affection, could have but a 
remote share in such family delights. She lost 
ground perceptibly. It was noticed as a phenom- 
enon that, once or twice, when the Court travelled, 
she was left behind at Windsor.^ The Prince was 
very cautious; at the change of Ministry, Lord 
Melbourne had advised him to choose that moment 
for decisive action; but he judged it wiser to wait.^ 
Time and the pressure of inevitable circumstances 
were for him; every day his predominance grew 
more assured — and every night. At length he per- 
ceived that he need hesitate no longer — that every 
wish, every velleity of his had only to be expressed 
to be at once Victoria's. He spoke, and Lehzen 
vanished for ever. No more would she reign in 
that royal heart and those royal halls. No more, 
watching from a window at Windsor, would she 
follow her pupil and her sovereign walking on the 
terrace among the obsequious multitude, with the 
eye of triumphant love.^ Returning to her native 
Hanover she established herself at Biickeburg in 
a small but comfortable house, the walls of which 
were entirely covered by portraits of Her Majes- 
ty.* The Baron, in spite of his dyspepsia, smiled 
again: Albert was supreme. 

1 Letters., I, 291, 295. s Lyttelton, 282-3. 

2 Ibid., I, 303. 4 Bloomfield, I, 215. 



MARRIAGE 169 

IV 

The early discords had passed away completely 
— resolved into the absolute harmony of married 
life. Victoria, overcome by a new, an unimagined 
revelation, had surrendered her whole soul to her 
husband. The beauty and the charm which so 
suddenly had made her his at first were, she now 
saw, no more than but the outward manifestation 
of the true Albert. There was an inward beauty, 
an inward glory which, blind that she was, she 
had then but dimly apprehended, but of which now 
she was aware in every fibre of her being — he was 
good — he was great! How could she ever have 
dreamt of setting up her will against his wisdom, 
her ignorance against his knowledge, her fancies 
against his perfect taste? Had she really once 
loved London and late hours and dissipation? She 
who now was only happy in the country, she who 
jumped out of bed every morning — oh, so early! 
— with Albert, to take a walk, before breakfast, 
with Albert alone! How wonderful it was to be 
taught by him! To be told by him which trees 
were which; and to learn all about the bees! And 
then to sit doing cross-stitch while he read aloud 
to her Hallam's Constitutional History of Eng- 
land! Or to listen to him playing on his new 
organ (" The organ is the first of instruments," he 



170 QUEEN VICTORIA 

said) ; or to sing to him a song by Mendelssohn, 
with a great deal of care over the time and the 
breathing, and only a very occasional false note! 
And, after dinner, too — oh, how good of him ! He 
had given up his double chess ! And so there could 
be round games at the round table, or everyone 
could spend the evening in the most amusing way 
imaginable — spinning counters and rings/ When 
the babies came it was still more wonderful. Pussy 
was such a clever little girl ("I am not Pussy! 
I am the Princess Royal!" she had angrily ex- 
claimed on one occasion) ; and Bertie — well, she 
could only pray most fervently that the little 
Prince of Wales would grow up to " resemble his 
angelic dearest Father in every, every respect, 
both in body and mind." ^ Her dear Mamma, too, 
had been drawn once more into the family circle, 
for Albert had brought about a reconciliation, and 
the departure of Lehzen had helped to obliterate 
the past.^ In Victoria's eyes, life had become an 
idyll, and, if the essential elements of an idyll are 
happiness, love and simplicity, an idyll it was; 
though, indeed, it was of a kind that might have 
disconcerted Theocritus. " Albert brought in 



*o' 



iGrey 338-9; Bloomfield, I, 28, 123; Lyttelton, 300, 303, 305-6, 
312, 334-5; Martin, I, 488; Letters, I, 369. 
2 Letters, I, 366. 
^Ihid., Ill, 439. 



MARRIAGE 171 

dearest little Pussy," wrote Her Majesty in her 
journal, "in such a smart white merino dress 
trimmed with blue, which Mamma had given her, 
and a pretty cap, and placed her on my bed, seat- 
ing himself next to her, and she was very dear 
and good. And, as my precious, invaluable Albert 
sat there, and our little Love between us, I felt 
quite moved with happiness and gratitude to 
God." ^ 

The past — the past of only three years since — 
when she looked back upon it, seemed a thing so 
remote and alien that she could explain it to her- 
self in no other way than as some kind of delusion 
— an unfortunate mistake. Turning over an old 
volume of her diary, she came upon this sentence 
— " As for * the confidence of the Crown,' God 
knows! No Minister, no friend ever possessed it 
so entirely as this truly excellent Lord Melbourne 
possesses mine!" A pang shot through her — she 
seized a pen, and wrote upon the margin — " Read- 
ing this again, I cannot forbear remarking what 
an artificial sort of happiness mine was then, and 
what a blessing it is I have now in my beloved 
Husband real and solid happiness, which no Poli- 
tics, no worldly reverses can change; it could not 
have lasted long as it was then, for after all, kind 

1 Martin, I, 125. 



172 QUEEN VICTORIA 

and excellent as Lord M. is, and kind as he was 
to me, it was but in Siociety that I had amusement, 
and I was only living on that superficial resource, 
which I then fancied was happiness ! Thank God ! 
for me and others, this is changed, and I know 
what REAL happiness is — V. R." ^ How did she 
know? What is the distinction between happiness 
that is real and happiness that is felt? So a phi- 
losopher — Lord M. himself perhaps — might have 
inquired. But she was no philosopher, and Lord 
M. was a phantom, and Albert was beside her, 
and that was enough. 

Happy, certainly, she was; and she wanted 
everyone to know it. Her letters to King Leopold 
are sprinkled thick with raptures. " Oh! my dear- 
est uncle, I am sure if you knew how happy, how 
blessed I feel, and how proud I feel in possessing 
such a perfect being as my husband ..." such 
ecstasies seemed to gush from her pen unceasingly 
and almost of their own accord.^ When, one day, 
without thinking. Lady Lyttelton described some- 
one to her as being " as happy as a queen," and 
then grew a little confused, " Don't correct your- 
self. Lady Lyttelton," said Her Majesty. "A 
queen is a very happy woman." ^ 

1 Girlhood, II, 135. 2 Letters, I, 366, 464-5, 475, etc. 

3 Lyttelton, 306. 



MARRIAGE 173 

But this new happiness was no lotus dream. On 
the contrary, it was bracing, rather than relaxing. 
Never before had she felt so acutely the necessity 
for doing her duty. She worked rnore methodically 
than ever at the business of State; she watched 
over her children with untiring vigilance. She car- 
ried on a large correspondence; she was occupied 
with her farm — her dairy — a whole multitude of 
household avocations — from morning till night. 
Her active, eager little body hurrying with quick 
steps after the long strides of Albert down the 
corridors and avenues of Windsor,^ seemed the 
very expression of her spirit. Amid all the soft- 
ness, the deliciousness of unmixed joy, all the 
liquescence, the overflowings of inexhaustible sen- 
timent, her native rigidity remained. " A vein 
of iron," said Lady Lyttelton, who, as royal gov- 
erness, had good means of observation, " runs 
through her most extraordinary character." " 

Sometimes the delightful routine of domestic 
existence had to be interrupted. It was necessary 
to exchange Windsor for Buckingham Palace, to 
open Parliament, or to interview official person- 
ages, or, occasionally, to entertain foreign visitors 
at the Castle. Then the quiet Court put on a 
sudden magnificence, and sovereigns from over the 

1 Crawford, 243. 2 Lyttelton, 348. 



174) QUEEN VICTORIA 

seas — Louis Philippe, or the King of Prussia, or 
the King of Saxony — found at Windsor an enter- 
tainment that was indeed a royal one. Few spec- 
tacles in Europe, it was agreed, produced an effect 
so imposing as the great Waterloo banqueting hall, 
crowded with guests in sparkling diamonds and 
blazing uniforms, the long walls hung with the 
stately portraits of heroes, and the tables loaded 
with the gorgeous gold plate of the kings of Eng- 
land.^ But, in that wealth of splendour, the most 
imposing spectacle of all was the Queen. The 
little hausfrau, who had spent the day before 
walking out with her children, inspecting her live- 
stock, practising shakes at the piano, and filling up 
her journal with adoring descriptions of her hus- 
band, suddenly shone forth, without art, without 
effort, by a spontaneous and natural transition, the 
very culmination of Majesty. The Tsar of Rus- 
sia himself was deeply impressed. Victoria on her 
side viewed with secret awe the tremendous Nich- 
olas. " A great event and a great compliment his 
visit certainly is," she told her uncle, " and the 
people here are extremely flattered at it. He is 
certainly a very striking man ; still very handsome. 
His profile is beautiful, and his manners most 
dignified and graceful; extremely civil — quite 

T^ Letters, II, 13; Bunsen, II, 6; Bloomfield, I, 63-4. 



MARRIAGE 175 

alarmingly so, as he is so full of attentions and 
politeness. But the expression of the eyes is for- 
midable^ and unlike anything I ever saw before." ^ 
She and Albert and " the good King of Saxony," 
who happened to be there at the same time, and 
whom, she said, " we like much — he is so unassum- 
ing " — drew together like tame villatic fowl in the 
presence of that awful eagle. When he was gone, 
they compared notes about his face, his unhappi- 
ness, and his despotic power over millions. Well! 
She for her part could not help pitying him, and 
she thanked God she was Queen of England.^ 

When the time came for returning some of these 
visits, the royal pair set forth in their yacht, much 
to Victoria's satisfaction. "I do love a ship!" 
she exclaimed, ran up and down ladders with the 
greatest agility, and cracked jokes with the sailors.^ 
The Prince was more aloof. They visited Louis 
Philippe at the Chateau d'Eu; they visited King 
Leopold in Brussels. It happened that a still 
more remarkable Englishwoman was in the Bel- 
gian capital, but she was not remarked ; and Queen 
Victoria passed unknowing before the steady gaze 
of one of the mistresses in M. Heger's pensionnat. 
" A little stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed 

1 Letters, II, 12-16, 2 Martin, I, 224,. 

sLyttelton, 292; Bloorcfield, I, 76-7. 



176 QUEEN VICTORIA 

— not much dignity or pretension about her," was 
Charlotte Bronte's comment as the royal carriage 
and six flashed by her, making her wait on the 
pavement for a moment, and interrupting the 
train of her reflections. "^ Victoria was in high 
spirits, and even succeeded in instilling a little 
cheerfulness into her uncle's sombre Court. King 
Leopold, indeed, was perfectly contented. His 
dearest hopes had been fulfilled; all his ambitions 
were satisfied; and for the rest of his life he had 
only to enjoy, in undisturbed decorum, his throne, 
his respectability, the table of precedence, and the 
punctual discharge of his irksome duties. But 
unfortunately the felicity of those who surrounded 
him was less complete. His Court, it was mur- 
mured, was as gloomy as a conventicle, and the 
most dismal of all the sufferers was his wife. " Pas 
de plaisanteries, madame!" he had exclaimed to 
the unfortunate successor of the Princess Char- 
lotte, when, in the early days of their marriage, 
she had attempted a feeble joke. Did she not un- 
derstand that the consort of a constitutional sov- 
ereign must not be frivolous? She understood, 
at last, only too well; and when the startled walls 
of the state apartments re-echoed to the chatter- 
ing and the laughter of Victoria, the poor lady 

1 Gaskell, I, 313. 



MARRIAGE 177 

found that she had ahnost forgotten how to 
smile. 

Another year, Germany was visited, and Albert 
displayed the beauties of his home. When Vic- 
toria crossed the frontier, she was much excited — 
and she was astonished as well. " To hear the 
people speak German," she noted in her diary, 
" and to see the German soldiers, etc., seemed to 
me so singular." Having recovered from this 
slight shock, she found the country charming. She 
was feted everywhere, crowds of the surrounding 
royalties swooped down to welcome her, and the 
prettiest groups of peasant children, dressed in 
their best clothes, presented her with bunches of 
flowers. The principality of Coburg, with its ro- 
mantic scenery and its well-behaved inhabitants, 
particularly delighted her; and when she woke up 
one morning to find herself in " dear Rosenau, 
my Albert's birthplace," it was " like a beautiful 
dream." On her return home, she expatiated, in 
a letter to King Leopold, upon the pleasures of 
the trip, dwelling especially upon the intensity 
of her affection for Albert's native land. " I have 
a feeling," she said, " for our dear little Germany, 
which I cannot describe. I felt it at Rosenau so 
much. It is a something which touches me, and 
which goes to my heart, and makes me inclined to 



178 QUEEN VICTORIA 

cry. I never felt at any other place that sort of 
pensive pleasure and peace which I felt there. I 
fear I almost like it too much." ^ 

V 

The husband was not so happy as the wife. In 
spite of the great improvement in his situation, in 
spite of a growing family and the adoration of 
Victoria, Albert was still a stranger in a strange 
land, and the serenity of spiritual satisfaction was 
denied him. It was something, no doubt, to have 
dominated his immediate environment; but it was 
not enough; and, besides, in the very completeness 
of his success, there was a bitterness. Victoria 
idolised him; but it was understanding that he 
craved for, not idolatry; and how much did Vic- 
toria, filled to the brim though she was with him, 
understand him? How much does the bucket un- 
derstand the well? He was lonely. He went to 
his organ and improvised with learned modulations 
until the sounds, swelling and subsiding through 
elaborate cadences, brought some solace to his 
heart. Then, with the elasticity of youth, he hur- 
ried off to play with the babies, or to design a new 
pigsty, or to read aloud the *' Church History of 
Scotland " to Victoria, or to pirouette before her 

1 Martin, I, 275, 306. 



MARRIAGE 179 

on one toe, like a ballet-dancer, with a fixed smile, 
to show her how she ought to behave when she 
appeared in public places.^ Thus did he amuse 
himself; but there was one distraction in which 
he did not indulge. He never flirted — no, not 
with the prettiest ladies of the Court. When, dur- 
ing their engagement, the Queen had remarked 
with pride to Lord Melbourne that the Prince paid 
no attention to any other woman, the cynic had 
answered, " No, that sort of thing is apt to come 
later"; upon which she had scolded him severely, 
and then hurried off to Stockmar to repeat what 
Lord M. had said. But the Baron had reassm-ed 
her; though in other cases, he had replied, that 
might happen, he did not think it would in Al- 
bert's. And the Baron was right. Throughout 
their married life no rival female charms ever had 
cause to give Victoria one moment's pang of jeal- 
ousy.^ 

What more and more absorbed him — bringing 
with it a curious comfort of its own — was his work. 
With the advent of Peel, he began to intervene 
actively in the affairs of the State. In more ways 
than one — in the cast of their intelligence, in their 
moral earnestness, even in the uneasy formalism of 

iLyttelton, 303, 354, 402. 

2 Clarendon, I, 181-2; Girlhood, II, 299, 306. 



180 QUEEN VICTORIA 

their manners — the two men resembled each other ; 
there was a sympathy between them; and thus 
Peel was ready enough to listen to the advice of 
Stockmar, and to urge the Prince forward into 
public life. A royal commission was about to be 
formed to enquire whether advantage might not 
be taken of the rebuilding of the Houses of Par- 
liament to encourage the Fine Arts in the United 
Kingdom ; and Peel, with great perspicacity, asked 
the Prince to preside over it. The work was of 
a kind which precisely suited Albert: his love of 
art, his love of method, his love of coming into 
contact — close yet dignified — with distinguished 
men — it satisfied them all; and he threw himself 
into it con amore. Some of the members of the 
commission were somewhat alarmed when, in his 
opening speech, he pointed out the necessity of 
dividing the subjects to be considered into " cate- 
gories " — the word, they thought, smacked dan- 
gerously of German metaphysics; but their confi- 
dence returned when they observed His Royal 
Highness's extraordinary technical acquaintance 
with the processes of fresco painting. When the 
question arose as to whether the decorations upon 
the walls of the new buildings should, or should 
not, have a moral purpose, the Prince spoke 
strongly for the affirmative. Although many, he 



MARRIAGE 181 

observed, would give but a passing glance to the 
vt^orks, the painter was not therefore to forget 
that others might view them with more thoughtful 
eyes. This argument convinced the commission, 
and it was decided that the subjects to be depicted 
should be of an improving nature. The frescoes 
were carried out in accordance with the commis- 
sion's instructions, but unfortunately before very 
long they had become, even to the most thought- 
ful eyes, totally invisible. It seems that His 
Royal Highness's technical acquaintance with the 
processes of fresco painting was incomplete.^ 

The next task upon which the Prince embarked 
was a more arduous one: he determined to reform 
the organisation of the royal household. This 
reform had been long overdue. For years past 
the confusion, discomfort, and extravagance in 
the royal residences, and in Buckingham Palace 
particularly, had been scandalous; no reform had 
been practicable under the rule of the Baroness; 
but her functions had now devolved upon the 
Prince, and in 1844, he boldly attacked the prob- 
lem. Three years earlier, Stockmar, after care- 
ful enquiry, had revealed in an elaborate memo- 
randum an extraordinary state of affairs. The 
control of the household, it appeared, was divided 

1 Martin, I, 119-25, 167; Stockmar, 660. 



182 QUEEN VICTORIA 

in the strangest manner between a number of au- 
thorities, each independent of the other, each pos- 
sessed of vague and fluctuating powers, without 
responsibihty, and without co-ordination. Of these 
authorities, the most prominent were the Lord 
Steward and the Lord Chamberlain — noblemen 
of high rank and political importance, who changed 
office with every administration, who did not re- 
side with the Court, and had no effective represen-«^ 
tatives attached to it. The distribution of their 
respective functions was uncertain and peculiar. 
In Buckingham Palace, it was believed that the 
Lord Chamberlain had charge of the whole of the 
rooms, with the exception of the kitchen, sculler- 
ies, and pantries, which were claimed by the Lord 
Steward. At the same time, the outside of the 
Palace was under the control of neither of these 
functionaries — but of the Office of Woods and 
Forests; and thus, while the insides of the win- 
dows were cleaned by the Department of the Lord 
Chamberlain — or possibly, in certain cases, of the 
Lord Steward — the Office of Woods and Forests 
cleaned their outsides. Of the servants, the house- 
keepers, the pages, and the housemaids were under 
the authority of the Lord Chamberlain; the clerk 
of the kitchen, the cooks, and the porters were 
under that of the Lord Steward; but the footmen. 



MARRIAGE 183 

the livery-porters, and the under-butlers took their 
orders from yet another official — the Master of 
the Horse. Naturally, in these circumstances the 
service was extremely defective and the lack of 
discipline among the servants disgraceful. They 
absented themselves for as long as they pleased 
and whenever the fancy took them; "and if," as 
the Baron put it, " smoking, drinking, and other 
'^irregularities occur in the dormitories, where foot- 
men, etc., sleep ten and twelve in each room, no 
one can help it." As for Her Majesty's guests, 
there was nobody to show them to their rooms, 
and they were often left, having utterly lost their 
way in the comphcated passages, to wander help- 
less by the hour. The strange divisions of author- 
ity extended not only to persons but to things. 
The Queen observed that there was never a fire 
in the dining-room. She enquired why. The an- 
swer was " the Lord Steward lays the fire, and 
the Lord Chamberlain lights it " ; the underlings 
of those two great noblemen having failed to come 
to an accommodation, there was no help for it — 
the Queen must eat in the cold.^ 

A surprising incident opened everyone's eyes 
to the confusion and negligence that reigned in 
the Palace. A fortnight after the birth of the 

iStockmar, 404-10; Martin, I, 156-60. . 



184. QUEEN VICTORIA 

Princess Royal the nurse heard a suspicious noise 
in the room next to the Queen's bedroom. She 
called to one of the pages, who, looking under a 
large sofa, perceived there a crouching figure 
" with a most repulsive appearance." It was " the 
boy Jones." This enigmatical personage, whose 
escapades dominated the newspapers for several 
ensuing months, and whose motives and character 
remained to the end ambiguous, was an undersized 
lad of 17, the son of a tailor, who had apparently 
gained admittance to the Palace by climbing over 
the garden wall and walking in through an open 
window. Two years before he had paid a similar 
visit in the guise of a chimney-sweep. He now 
declared that he had spent three days in the Pal- 
ace, hiding under various beds, that he had 
" helped himself to soup and other eatables," and 
that he had " sat upon the throne, seen the Queen, 
and heard the Princess Royal squall." Every de- 
tail of the strange affair was eagerly canvassed. 
The Times reported that the boy Jones had " from 
his infancy been fond of reading," but that " his 
countenance is exceedingly sullen." It added: 
" The sofa under which the boy Jones was dis- 
covered, we understand, is one of the most costly 
and magnificent material and workmanship, and 
ordered expressly for the accommodation of the 



MARRIAGE 185 

royal and illustrious visitors who call to pay their 
respects to Her Majesty." The culprit was sent 
for three rnonths to the " House of Correction." 
When he emerged, he immediately returned to 
Buckingham Palace. He was discovered, and sent 
back to the " House of Correction " for another 
three months, after which he was offered £4 a 
week by a music hall to appear upon the stage. 
He refused this offer, and shortly afterwards was 
found by the police loitering round Buckingham 
Palace. The authorities acted vigorously, and, 
without any trial or process of law, shipped the 
boy Jones off to sea. A year later his ship put 
into Portsmouth to refit, and he at once disem- 
barked and walked to London. He was re-arrested 
before he reached the Palace, and sent back to 
his ship, the Warspite. On this occasion it was 
noticed that he had " much improved in personal 
appearance and grown quite corpulent " ; and so 
the boy Jones passed out of history, though we 
catch one last glimpse of him in 1844 falling over- 
board in the night between Tunis and Algiers. He 
was fished up again; but it was conjectured — as 
one of the Warspite's officers explained in a letter 
to The Times — that his fall had not been acci- 
dental, but that he had deliberately jumped into 
the Mediterranean in order to " see the life-buoy 



186 QUEEN VICTORIA 

light burning." Of a boy with such a record, what 
else could be supposed?^ 

But discomfort and alarm were not the only 
results of the mismanagement of the household; 
the waste, extravagance, and peculation that also 
flowed from it were immeasurable. There were 
preposterous perquisites and malpractices of every 
kind. It was, for instance, an ancient and immu- 
table rule that a candle that had once been lighted 
should never be lighted again; what happened to 
the old candles, nobody knew. Again, the Prince, 
examining the accounts, was puzzled by a weekly 
expenditure of thirty^five shillings on " Red Room 
Wine." He enquired into the matter, and after 
great difficulty discovered that in the time of 
George III a room in Windsor Castle with red 
hangings had once been used as a guard-room, and 
that five shillings a day had been allowed to pro- 
vide wine for the officers. The guard had long 
since been moved elsewhere, but the payment for 
wine in the Red Room continued, the money being 
received by a half -pay officer who held the sinecure 
position of under-butler.^ 

After much laborious investigation, and a stiff 
struggle with the multitude of vested interests 

t-The Times, December, 1840; March, July, December, 1841; 
February, October, 1842; July, 1844. 
2 The Times, "Life," 46. 



MARRIAGE 187 

which had been brought into being by long years 
of neglect, the Prince succeeded in effecting a 
complete reform. The various conflicting authori- 
ties were induced to resign their powers into the 
hands of a single official, the Master of the House- 
hold, who became responsible for the entire man- 
agement of the royal palaces. Great economies 
were made, and the whole crowd of venerable 
abuses was swept away. Among others, the un- 
lucky half -pay officer of the Red Room was, much 
to his surprise, given the choice of relinquishing 
his weekly emolument or of performing the duties 
of an under-butler. Even the irregularities among 
the footmen, etc., were greatly diminished. There 
were outcries and complaints; the Prince was ac- 
cused of meddling, of injustice, and of saving 
candle-ends; but he held on his course, and before 
long the admirable administration of the royal 
household was recognised as a convincing proof of 
his perseverance and capacity.^ 

At the same time his activity was increasing 
enormously in a more important sphere. He had 
become the Queen's Private Secretary, her confi- 
dential adviser, her second self. He was now al- 
ways present at her interviews with Ministers.^ 
He took, like the Queen, a special interest in for- 

iStockmar, 409-10; Martin, I, 161. 2 Greville, VII, 132. 



188 QUEEN VICTORIA 

eign policy; but there was no public question in 
which his influence was not felt. A double process 
was at work; while Victoria fell more and more 
absolutely under his intellectual predominance, he, 
simultaneously, grew more and more completely 
absorbed by the machinery of high politics — the 
incessant and multifarious business of a great 
State. Nobody any more could call him a dilet- 
tante ; he was a worker, a public personage, a man 
of affairs. Stockmar noted the change with exul- 
tation. " The Prince," he wrote, " has improved 
very much lately. He has evidently a head for 
politics. He has become, too, far more indepen- 
dent. His mental activity is constantly on the in- 
crease, and he gives the greater part of his time 
to business, without complaining." " The relations 
between husband and wife," added the Baron, 
" are all one could desire." ^ 

Long before Peel's ministry came to an end, 
there had been a complete change in Victoria's 
attitude towards him. His appreciation of the 
Prince had softened her heart; the sincerity and 
warmth of his nature, which, in private intercourse 
with those whom he wished to please, had the 
power of gradually dissipating the awkwardness 
of his manners, did the rest.^ She came in time 

1 stockmar, 466-7. 2 Disraeli, 311; Greville, VI, 367-8. 



MARRIAGE 189 

to regard him with intense feehngs of respect and 
attachment. She spoke of " om- worthy Peel," for 
whom, she said, she had " an extreme admiration " 
and who had shown himself " a man of unbounded 
loyalty, courage, patriotism, and Mgh-mindedness, 
and his conduct towards me has been chivalrous 
almost, I might say." ^ She dreaded his removal 
from office almost as frantically as she had once 
dreaded that of Lord M. It would be, she de- 
clared, a great calamity. Six years before, what 
would she have said, if a prophet had told her that 
the day would come when she would be horrified 
by the triumph of the Whigs? Yet there was no 
escaping it; she had to face the return of her old 
friends. In the ministerial crises of 1845 and 
1846, the Prince played a dominating part. Every- 
body recognised that he was the real centre of the 
negotiations — the actual controller of the forces 
and the functions of the Crown. The process by 
which this result was reached had been so gradual 
as to be almost imperceptible; but it may be said 
with certainty that, by the close of Peel's adminis- 
tration, Albert had become, in effect, the King of 
England.^ 

1 Letters, II, 64. 2 Greville, V, 329-30. 



190 QUEEN VICTORIA 

YI 

With the (final emergence of the Prince came the 
final extinction of Lord Melbourne. A year after 
his loss of office, he had been struck down by a 
paralytic seizure; he had apparently recovered, but 
his old elasticity had gone for ever. Moody, rest- 
less, and unhappy, he wandered like a ghost about 
the town, bursting into soliloquies in public places, 
or asking odd questions, suddenly, a propos de 
bottes. " I'll be hanged if I'll do it for you, my 
Lord," he was heard to say in the hall at Brooks's, 
standing by himself, and addressing the air after 
much thought. " Don't you consider," he abruptly 
asked a fellow-guest at Lady Holland's, leaning 
across the dinner-table in a pause of the conversa- 
tion, " that it was a most damnable act of Henri 
Quatre to change his religion with a view to secur- 
ing the Crown? " He sat at home, brooding for 
hours in miserable solitude. He turned over his 
books — ^his classics and his Testaments — but they 
brought him no comfort at all. He longed for 
the return of the past, for the impossible, for he 
knew not what, for the devilries of Caro, for the 
happy platitudes of Windsor. His friends had 
left him, and no wonder, he said in bitterness — the 
fire was out. He secretly hoped for a return to 
power, scanning the newspapers with solicitude. 



MARRIAGE 191 

and occasionally making a speech in the House of 
Lords. His correspondence with the Queen con- 
tinued, and he appeared from time to time at 
Court; but he was a mere simulacrum of his for- 
mer self; " the dream," wrote Victoria, " is past." 
As for his political views, they could no longer be 
tolerated. The Prince was an ardent Free Trader, 
and so, of course, was the Queen; and when, din- 
ing at Windsor at the time of the repeal of the 
Corn Laws, Lord Melbourne suddenly exclaimed, 
"Ma'am, it's a damned dishonest act!" everyone 
was extremely embarrassed. Her INIajestj^ laughed 
and tried to change the conversation, but without 
avail; Lord Melbourne returned to the charge 
again and again with — " I say, Ma'am, it's damned 
dishonest!" — until the Queen said "Lord Mel- 
bourne, I must beg you not to say anything more 
on this subject now"; and then he held his 
tongue. She was kind to him, writing him long 
letters, and always remembering his birthday; but 
it was kindness at a distance, and he knew it. He 
had become " poor Lord Melbourne." A pro- 
found disquietude devoured him. He tried to fix 
his mind on the condition of Agriculture and the 
Oxford Movement. He wrote long memoranda ^ 
in utterly undecipherable handwriting. He was 
convinced that he had lost all his money, and could 



192 QUEEN VICTORIA 

not possibly afford to be a Knight of the Garter. 
He had run through everything, and yet — if Peel 
went out, he might be sent for — why not? He was 
never sent for. The Whigs ignored him in their 
consultations, and the leadership of the party 
passed to Lord John Russell. When Lord John 
became Prime Minister, there was much politeness, 
but Lord Melbourne was not asked to join the 
Cabinet. He bore the blow with perfect amenity; 
but he understood, at last, that that was the end.^ ^ 
For two years more he lingered, sinking slowly 
into unconsciousness and imbecility. Sometimes, 
propped up in his chair, he would be heard to mur- 
mur, with unexpected appositeness, the words of 
Samson: — 

"So much I feel ray general spirit droop, 
My hopes all flat, nature within me seems 
In all her functions weary of herself, 
My race of glory run, and race of shame. 
And I shall shortly be with them that rest." 2 

A few days before his death, Victoria, learning 
that there was no hope of his recovery, turned 
her mind for a little towards that which had once 
been Lord M. " You will grieve to hear," she told 
King Leopold, " that our good, dear, old friend 

iTorrens, 502, chap, xxxiii; Letters, I, 451; II, 140; Greville, 
V, 359; VI, 125. 
zGreviUe, VI, 265. 



MARRIAGE 193 

Melbourne is dying. . . . One cannot forget how 
good and kind and amiable he was, and it brings 
back so many recollections to my mind, though, 
God knows! I never wish that time back 
again." ^ 

She was in little danger. The tide of circum- 
stance was flowing now with irresistible fullness 
towards a very different consummation. The seri- 
ousness of Albert, the claims of her children, her 
own inmost inclinations, and the movement of the 
whole surrounding world, combined to urge her 
forward along the narrow way of public and do- 
mestic duty. Her family steadily increased. 
Within eighteen months of the birth of the Prince 
of Wales the Princess Alice appeared, and a year 
later the Prince Alfred, and then the Princess 
Helena, and, two years afterwards, the Princess 
Louise; and still there were signs that the pretty 
row of royal infants was not complete. The par- 
ents, more and more involved in family cares and 
family happiness, found the pomp of Windsor 
galling, and longed for some more intimate and 
remote retreat. On the advice of Peel they pur- 
chased the estate of Osborne, in the Isle of Wight. 
Their skill and economy in financial matters had 
enabled them to lay aside a substantial sum of 

^Letters, II, 203. 



194j queen victoria 

money; and they could afford, out of their sav- 
ings, not merely to buy the property but to build 
a new house for themselves and to furnish it at 
a cost of £200,000.^ At Osborne, by the sea-shore, 
and among the woods, which Albert, with memo- 
ries of Rosenau in his mind, had so carefully 
planted, the royal family spent every hour that 
could be snatched from Windsor and London — 
delightful hours of deep retirement and peaceful 
work.^ The public looked on with approval. A 
few aristocrats might sniff or titter; but with the 
nation at large the Queen was now once more ex- 
tremely popular. The middle-classes, in particu- 
lar, were pleased. They liked a love-match; they 
liked a household which combined the advantages 
of royalty and virtue, and in which they seemed 
to see, reflected as in some resplendent looking- 
glass, the ideal image of the very lives they led 
themselves. Their own existences, less exalted, 
but oh! so soothingly similar, acquired an added 
excellence, an added succulence, from the early 
hours, the regularity, the plain tuckers, the round 
games, the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding of 
Osborne. It was indeed a model Court. Not only 
were its central personages the patterns of pro- 
priety, but no breath of scandal, no shadow of in- 

1 Greville, VI, 68-9. 2 Martin, I, 247-9; Grey, 113. 



MARRIAGE 195 

decorum, might approach its utmost boundaries/ 
For Victoria, with all the zeal of a convert, upheld 
now the standard of moral purity with an inflexi- 
bility surpassing, if that were possible, Albert's 
own. She blushed to think how she had once be- 
lieved — how she had once actually told him — that 
one might be too strict and particular in such mat- 
ters, and that one ought to be indulgent towards 
other people's dreadful sins. But she was no 
longer Lord M.'s pupil: she was Albert's wife. 
She was more — the embodiment, the living apex 
of a new era in the generations of mankind. The 
last vestige of the eighteenth century had disap- 
peared; cynicism and subtlety w^ere shrivelled into 
powder; and duty, industry, morality, and domes- 
ticity triumphed over them. Even the very chairs 
and tables had assumed, with a singular respon- 
siveness, the forms of prim solidity. The Victo- 
rian Age was in full swing. 



vn 

Only one thing more was needed: material ex- 
pression must be given to the new ideals and the 
new forces so that they might stand revealed, in 
visible glory, before the eyes of an astonished 

iStockmar, 363; Martin, I, 316. 



196 QUEEN VICTORIA 

world. It was for Albert to supply this want. 
He mused, and was inspired : the Great Exhibition 
came into his head. 

Without consulting anyone, he thought out the 
details of his conception with the minutest care. 
There had been exhibitions before in the world, 
but this should surpass them all. It should con- 
tain specimens of what every country could pro- 
duce in raw materials, in machinery and mechan- 
ical inventions, in manufactures, and in the applied 
and plastic arts. It should not be merely useful 
and ornamental; it should teach a high moral les- 
son. It should be an international monument to 
those supreme blessings of civilisation — peace, 
progress, and prosperity. For some time past the 
Prince had been devoting much of his attention to 
the problems of commerce and industry. He had 
a taste for machinery of every kind, and his sharp 
eye had more than once detected, with the precision 
of an expert, a missing cog-wheel in some vast 
and complicated engine.^ A visit to Liverpool, 
where he opened the Albert Dock, impressed upon 
his mind the immensity of modern industrial 
forces, though in a letter to Victoria describing 
his experiences, he was careful to retain his cus- 
tomary lightness of touch. " As I write," he play- 

1 Martin, II, 87. 



MARRIAGE 197 

fully remarked, " you will be making your evening 
toilette, and not be ready in time for dinner. I 
must set about the same task, and not, let me hope, 
with the same result. . . . The loyalty and en- 
thusiasm of the inhabitants are great; but the heat 
is greater still. I am satisfied that if the popula- 
tion of Liverpool had been weighed this morning, 
and were to be weighed again now, they would 
be found many degrees lighter. The docks are 
wonderful, and the mass of shipping incredible." ^ 
In art and science he had been deeply interested 
since boyhood ; his reform of the household had put 
his talent for organisation beyond a doubt; and 
thus from every point of view the Prince was well 
qualified for his task. Having matured his plans, 
he summoned a small committee and laid an out- 
line of his scheme before it. The committee ap- 
proved, and the great undertaking was set on foot 
without delay.^ 

Two years, however, passed before it was com- 
pleted. For two years the Prince laboured with 
extraordinary and incessant energy. At first all 
went smoothly. The leading manufacturers warmly 
took up the idea; the colonies and the East India 
Company were sympathetic; the great foreign na- 
tions were eager to send in their contributions; 

1 Martin, I, 334. 2 Ibid., II, 224-5. 



198 QUEEN VICTORIA 

the powerful support of Sir Robert Peel was ob- 
tained, and the use of a site in Hyde Park, se- 
lected by the Prince, was sanctioned by the Gov- 
ernment. Out of 234 plans for the exhibition 
building, the Prince chose that of Joseph Paxton, 
famous as a designer of gigantic conservatories; 
and the work was on the point of being put in 
hand when a series of unexpected difficulties arose. 
Opposition to the whole scheme, which had long 
been smouldering in various quarters, suddenly 
burst forth. There was an outcry, headed by The 
Times, against the use of the park for the exhibi- 
tion; for a moment it seemed as if the building 
would be relegated to a suburb; but, after a fierce 
debate in the House, the supporters of the site 
in the Park won the day. Then it appeared that 
the project lacked a sufficient financial backing; 
but this obstacle, too, was surmounted, and eventu- 
ally £200,000 was subscribed as a guarantee fund. 
The enormous glass edifice rose higher and higher, 
covering acres and enclosing towering elm trees 
beneath its roof: and then the fury of its enemies 
reached a climax. The fashionable, the cautious, 
the Protectionists, the pious, all joined in the hue 
and cry. It was pointed out that the Exhibition 
would serve as a rallying point for all the ruffians 
in England, for all the malcontents in Europe; 



MARRIAGE 199 

and that on the day of its opening there would cer- 
tainly be a riot and probably a revolution. It 
was asserted that the glass roof was porous, and 
that the droppings of fifty million sparrows would 
utterly destroy every object beneath it. Agitated 
nonconformists declared that the Exhibition was 
an arrogant and wicked enterprise which would in- 
fallibly bring down God's punishment upon the 
nation. Colonel Sibthorpe, in the debate on the 
Address, prayed that hail and lightning might de- 
scend from heaven on the accursed thing. The 
Prince, with unyielding perseverance and infinite 
patience, pressed on to his goal. His health was 
seriously affected ; he suffered from constant sleep- 
lessness; his strength was almost worn out. But 
he remembered the injunctions of Stockmar and 
never relaxed. The volume of his labours grew 
more prodigious every day; he toiled at commit- 
tees, presided over public meetings, made speeches, 
and carried on communications with every corner 
of the civilised world — and his efforts were re- 
warded. On May 1, 1851, the Great Exhibition 
was opened by the Queen before an enormous 
concourse of persons, amid scenes of dazzling bril- 
liancy and triumphant enthusiasm.^ 

1 Martin, II, 225, 243-51, 289, 297-9, 358-9; Dictionary of National 
Biography, Art. "Joseph Paxton"; Bloomfield, II, 3-4. 



200 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Victoria herself was in a state of excitement 
which bordered on dehrium. She performed her 
duties in a trance of joy, gratitude, and amaze- 
ment, and, when it was all over, her feelings poured 
themselves out into her journal in a torrential 
flood. The day had been nothing but an endless 
succession of glories — or rather one vast glory — 
one vast radiation of Albert. Everything she had 
seen, everything she had felt or heard, had been so 
beautiful, so wonderful that even the royal under- 
linings broke down under the burden of emphasis, . 
while her remembering pen rushed on, regardless, 
from splendour to splendour — the huge crowds, 
so well-behaved and loyal — flags of all the nations 
floating — the inside of the building, so immense, 
with myriads of people and the sun shining 
through the roof — a little side room, where we left 
our shawls — palm-trees and machinery — dear Al- 
bert — the place so big that we could hardly hear 
the organ — thankfulness to God — a curious assem- 
blage of political and distinguished men — the 
March from Athalie — God bless my dearest Al- 
bert, God bless my dearest country! — a glass 
fountain — the Duke and Lord Anglesey walking 
arm in arm — a beautiful Amazon, in bronze, by 
Kiss — Mr. Paxton, who might be justly proud, 
and rose from being a common gardener's boy — 



MARRIAGE 201 

Sir George Grey in tears, and everybody aston- 
ished and delighted.^ 

A striking incident occurred when, after a short 
prayer by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the choir 
of 600 voices burst into the " Hallelujah Chorus." 
At that moment a Chinaman, dressed in full na- 
tional costume, stepped out into the middle of 
the central nave, and, advancing slowly towards 
the royal group, did obeisance to Her Majesty. 
The Queen, much impressed, had no doubt that 
he was an eminent mandarin; and, when the final 
procession was formed, orders were given that, as 
no representative of the Celestial Empire was 
present, he should be included in the diplomatic 
cortege. He accordingly, with the utmost gravity, 
followed immediately behind the Ambassadors. 
He subsequently disappeared, and it was ru- 
moured, among ill-natured people, that, far from 
being a mandarin, the fellow was a mere impostor. 
But nobody ever really discovered the nature of 
the comments that had been lurking behind the 
matchless impassivity of that yellow face.^ 

A few days later Victoria poured out her heart 
to her uncle. The first of May, she said, was " the 
greatest day in our history, the most beautiful and 
imposing and touching spectacle ever seen, and 

1 Martin, II, 364-8. 2 Martin, II, 367 and note. 



202 QUEEN VICTORIA 

the triumph of my beloved Albert. ... It was 
the happiest, proudest day in my life, and I can 
think of nothing else. Albert's dearest name is 
immortalised with this great conception, Ms own, 
and my oxion dear country showed she was worthy 
of it. The triumph is immense" ^ 

It was. The enthusiasm was universal; even 
the bitterest scoffers were converted, and joined in 
the chorus of praise.^ Congratulations from pub- 
lic bodies poured in ; the City of Paris gave a great 
fete to the Exhibition committee; and the Queen 
and the Prince made a triumphal progress through 
the North of England. The financial results were 
equally remarkable. The total profit made by the 
Exhibition amounted to a sum of <£l 65,000, which 
was employed in the purchase of land for the 
erection of a permanent National Museum in 
South Kensington. During the six months of its 
existence in Hyde Park over six million persons 
visited it, and not a single accident occurred. But 
there is an end to all things; and the time had 
come for the Crystal Palace to be removed to the 
salubrious seclusion of Sydenham. Victoria, sad 
but resigned, paid her final visit. *' It looked so 
beautiful," she said. " I could not believe it was 
the last time I was to see it. An organ, accompa- 

1 Letters, II, 317-8. 2 Greville, VI, 413. 



MARRIAGE 203 

nied by a fine and powerful wind instrument called 
the sommerophone, was being played, and it nearly 
upset me. The canvas is very dirty, the red cur- 
tains are faded and many things are very much 
soiled, still the effect is fresh and new as ever and 
most beautiful. The glass fountain was already 
removed . . . and the sappers and miners were 
rolling about the little boxes just as they did at 
the beginning. It made us all very melancholy." 
But more cheerful thoughts followed. When all 
was over, she expressed her boundless satisfaction 
in a dithyrambic letter to the Prime Minister. Her 
beloved husband's name, she said, was for ever 
immortalised, and that this was universally recog- 
nised by the country was a source to her of im- 
mense happiness and gratitude. " She feels grate- 
ful to Providence," Her Majesty concluded, " to 
have permitted her to be united to so great, so 
noble, so excellent a Prince, and this year will ever 
remain the proudest and happiest of her life. The 
day of the closing of the Exhibition (which the 
Queen regretted much she could not witness), was 
the twelfth anniversary of her betrothal to the 
Prince, which is a curious coincidence." ^ 

1 Martin, II, 369-72, 386-92, 403-5. 



CHAPTER V 
LORD PALMERSTON 

I 
In 1851 the Prince's fortunes reached their high- 
water mark. The success of the Great Exhibition 
enormously increased his reputation and seemed to 
assure him henceforward a leading place in the 
national life. But before the year was out another 
triumph, in a very different sphere of action, was 
also his. This triumph, big with fateful conse- 
quences, was itself the outcome of a series of com- 
plicated circumstances which had been gathering 
to a climax for many years. 

The unpopularity of Albert in high society had 
not diminished with time. Aristocratic persons 
continued to regard him with disfavour; and he 
on his side, withdrew further and further into a 
contemptuous reserve. For a moment, indeed, it 
appeared as if the dislike of the upper classes was 
about to be suddenly converted into cordiality; 
for they learnt with amazement that the Prince, 
during a country visit, had ridden to hounds and 
acquitted himself remarkably well. They had al- 

204 



LORD PALMERSTON 205 

ways taken it for granted that his horsemanship 
was of some second-rate foreign quahty, and here 
he was jumping five-barred gates and tearing 
after the fox as if he had been born and bred in 
Leicestershire. They could hardly beheve it; was 
it possible that they had made a mistake, and that 
Albert was a good fellow after all? Had he 
wished to be thought so he would certainly have 
seized this opportunity, purchased several hunters, 
and used them constantly. But he had no such 
desire; hunting bored him, and made Victoria 
nervous. He continued, as before, to ride, as he 
himself put it, for exercise or convenience, not for 
amusement; and it was agreed that though the 
Prince, no doubt, could keep in his saddle well 
enough, he was no sportsman.^ 

This was a serious matter. It was not merely 
that Albert was laughed at by fine ladies and 
sneered at by fine gentlemen; it was not merely 
that Victoria, who before her marriage had cut 
some figure in society, had, under her husband's 
influence, almost completely given it up. Since 
Charles the Second the sovereigns of England 
had, with a single exception, always been unfash- 
ionable ; and the fact that the exception was George 
the Fourth seemed to give an added significance 

1 Martin, I, 194-6; Letters, I, 510-11. 



206 QUEEN VICTORIA 

to the rule. What was grave was not the lack of 
fashion, but the lack of other and more important 
qualities. The hostility of the upper classes was 
symptomatic of an antagonism more profound 
than one of manners or even of tastes. The Prince, 
in a word, was un-English. What that word pre- 
cisely meant it was difficult to say; but the fact 
was patent to every eye. Lord Palmerston, also, 
was not fashionable; the great Whig aristocrats 
looked askance at him, and only tolerated him as 
an unpleasant necessity thrust upon them by fate. 
But Lord Palmerston was English through and 
through; there was something in him that ex- 
pressed, with extraordinary vigour, the fundamen- 
tal qualities of the English race. And he was the 
very antithesis of the Prince. By a curious chance 
it so happened that this typical Englishman was 
brought into closer contact than any other of his 
countrymen with the alien from over the sea. It 
thus fell out that differences which, in more for- 
tunate circumstances, might have been smoothed 
away and obliterated, became accentuated to the 
highest pitch. All the mysterious forces in Al- 
bert's soul leapt out to do battle with his adver- 
sary, and, in the long and violent conflict that 
followed, it almost seemed as if he was struggling 
with England herself. 



LORD PALMER ST ON. 207 

Palmerston's whole life had been spent in the 
government of the country. At twenty-two he 
had been a Minister; at twenty-five he had been 
offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, 
which, with that prudence which formed so unex- 
pected a part of his character, he had declined to 
accept. His first spell of office had lasted uninter- 
ruptedly for twenty-one years. When Lord Grey 
came into power he received the Foreign Secre- 
taryship, a post which he continued to occupy, 
with two intervals, for another twenty-one years. 
Throughout this period his reputation with the 
public had steadily grown, and when, in 1846, he 
became Foreign Secretary for the third time, his 
position in the country was almost, if not quite, 
on an equality with that of the Prime Minister, 
Lord John Russell. He was a tall, big man of 
sixty-two, with a jaunty air, a large face, dyed 
whiskers, and a long sardonic upper lip. His pri- 
vate life was far from respectable, but he had 
greatly strengthened his position in society by 
marrying, late in life. Lady Cowper, the sister of 
Lord Melbourne, and one of the most influential 
of the Whig hostesses. Powerful, experienced, 
and supremely self-confident, he naturally paid 
very little attention to Albert. Why should he? 
The Prince was interested in foreign affairs? Very 



208 QUEEN VICTORIA 

well, then; let the Prince pay attention to him — 
to him, who had been a Cabinet Minister when 
Albert was in the cradle, who was the chosen 
leader of a great nation, and who had never failed 
in anything he had undertaken in the whole course 
of his life. Not that he wanted the Prince's atten- 
tion — far from it: so far as he could see, Albert 
was merely a young foreigner, who suffered from 
having no vices, and whose only claim to distinc- 
tion was that he had happened to marry the Queen 
of England. This estimate, as he found out to 
his cost, was a mistaken one. Albert was by no 
means insignificant, and, behind Albert, there was 
another figure by no means insignificant either — 
there was Stockmar. 

But Palmerston, busy with his plans, his ambi- 
tions, and the management of a great department, 
brushed all such considerations on one side; it was 
his favourite method of action. He lived by in- 
stinct — by a quick eye and a strong hand, a dex- 
terous management of every crisis as it arose, a 
half -unconscious sense of the vital elements in a 
situation. He was very bold; and nothing gave 
him more exhilaration than to steer the ship of 
state in a high wind, on a rough sea, with every 
stitch of canvas on her that she could carry. But 
there is a point beyond which boldness becomes 



LORDPALMERSTON 209 

rashness — a point perceptible only to intuition 
and not to reason; and beyond that point Palmer- 
ston never went. When he saw that the case 
demanded it, he could go slow — very slow indeed; 
in fact, his whole career, so full of vigorous ad- 
venture, was nevertheless a masterly example of 
the proverb, " tout vient a point a qui sait at- 
tendre." But when he decided to go quick, no- 
body went quicker. One day, returning from 
Osborne, he found that he had missed the train 
to London; he ordered a special, but the station- 
master told him that to put a special train upon 
the line at that time of day would be dangerous, 
and he could not allow it. Palmerston insisted, 
declaring that he had important business in Lon- 
don, which could not wait. The station-master, 
supported by all the officials, continued to demur; 
the company, he said, could not possibly take the 
responsibility. "On viy responsibility, then!" 
said Palmerston, in his off-hand, peremptory way ; 
whereupon the station-master ordered up the train, 
and the Foreign Secretary reached London in 
time for his work, without an accident.^ The story 
is typical of the happy valiance with which he con- 
ducted both his own affairs and those of the na- 
tion. " England," he used to say, " is strong 

iBunsen, II, 162. 



210 QUEEN VICTORIA 

enough to brave consequences." ^ Apparently, 
under Palmerston's guidance, she was. While 
the officials protested and shook in their shoes, he 
would wave them away with his airy " My respon- 
sibility! " and carry the country swiftly along the 
line of his choice, to a triumphant destination, — 
without an accident. His immense popularity 
was the result partly of his diplomatic successes, 
partly of his extraordinary personal affability, but 
chiefly of the genuine intensity with which he re- 
sponded to the feelings and supported the inter- 
ests of his countrymen. The public knew that it 
had in Lord Palmerston not only a high-mettled 
master, but also a devoted servant — that he was, 
in every sense of the word, a public man. When 
he was Prime Minister, he noticed that iron hur- 
dles had been put up on the grass in the Green 
Park; he immediately wrote to the Minister re- 
sponsible, ordering, in the severest language, their 
instant removal, declaring that they were " an in- 
tolerable nuisance," and that the purpose of the 
grass was "to be walked upon freely and without 
restraint by the people, old and young, for whose 
enjoyment the parks are maintained." ' It was 
in this spirit that, as Foreign Secretary, he watched 
over the interests of Englishmen abroad. Noth- 

iDaUing, I, 346. 2 Dalling, III, 4ia-5. 



LORD PALMERSTON 211 

ing could be more agreeable for Englishmen; but 
foreign governments were less pleased. They 
found Lord Palmerston interfering, exasperating, 
and alarming. In Paris they spoke with bated 
breath of " ce terrible milord Palmerston " ; and 
in Germany they made a little song about him — 

" Hat der Teufel einen Sohn, 
So ist er sicher Palmerston." ^ 

But their complaints, their threats, and their agi- 
tations were all in vain. Palmerston, with his 
upper lip sardonically curving, braved conse- 
quences, and held on his course. 

The first diplomatic crisis which arose after his 
return to office, though the Prince and the Queen 
were closely concerned with it, passed off without 
serious disagreement between the Court and the 
Minister. For some years past a curious problem 
had been perplexing the chanceries of Europe. 
Spain, ever since the time of Napoleon a prey 
to civil convulsions, had settled down for a short 
interval to a state of comparative quiet under the 
rule of Christina, the Queen Mother, and her 
daughter Isabella, the young Queen. In 1846, 
the question of Isabella's marriage, which had for 
long been the subject of diplomatic speculations, 

1 Ashley, II, 213. 



212 QUEEN VICTORIA 

suddenly became acute. Various candidates for 
her hand were proposed — among others, two cous- 
ins of her own, another Spanish prince, and Prince 
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a first cousin of Vic- 
toria's and Albert's ; for different reasons, however, 
none of these young men seemed altogether satis- 
factory. Isabella was not yet sixteen ; and it might 
have been supposed that her marriage could be 
put off for a few years more; but this was consid- 
ered to be out of the question. " Vous ne savez 
pas," said a high authority, " ce que c'est que ces 
princesses espagnoles; elles ont le diable au corps, 
et on a toujours dit que si nous ne nous hations pas, 
I'heritier viendrait avant le mari." ^ It might also 
have been supposed that the young Queen's mar- 
riage was a matter to be settled by herself, her 
mother, and the Spanish Government; but this 
again was far from being the case. It had become, 
by one of those periodical reversions to the ways 
of the eighteenth century, which, it is rumoured, 
are still not unknown in diplomacy, a question of 
dominating importance in the foreign policies 
both of France and England. For several years, 
Louis Philippe and his Prime Minister Guizot 
had been privately maturing a very subtle plan. 
It was the object of the French King to repeat 

iGreville, VI, 33. 



LORDPALMERSTON 213 

the glorious coup of Louis XIV, and to abolish 
the Pyrenees by placing one of his grandsons on 
the throne of Spain. In order to bring this about, 
he did not venture to suggest that his younger 
son, the Due de Montpensier, should marry Isa- 
bella; that would have been too obvious a move, 
which would have raised immediate and insur- 
mountable opposition. He therefore proposed 
that Isabella should marry her cousin, the Duke 
of Cadiz, while Montpensier married Isabella's 
younger sister, the Infanta Fernanda; and pray, 
what possible objection could there be to that? 
The wily old King whispered into the chaste ears 
of Guizot the key to the secret; he had good rea- 
son to believe that the Duke of Cadiz was incapa- 
ble of having children, and therefore the offspring 
of Fernanda would inherit the Spanish crown. 
Guizot rubbed his hands, and began at once to 
set the necessary springs in motion ; but, of course, 
the whole scheme was very soon divulged and 
understood. The English Government took an 
extremely serious view of the matter; the balance 
of power was clearly at stake, and the French in- 
trigue must be frustrated at all hazards. A diplo- 
matic struggle of great intensity followed; and 
it occasionally appeared that a second War of the 
Spanish Succession was about to break out. This 



214 QUEEN VICTORIA 

was avoided, but the consequences of this strange 
imbroglio were far-reaching and completely dif- 
ferent from what any of the parties concerned 
could have guessed. 

In the course of the long and intricate negotia- 
tions there was one point upon which Louis Phi- 
lippe laid a special stress — the candidature of 
Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. The prospect 
of a marriage between a Coburg Prince and the 
Queen of Spain was, he declared, at least as threat- 
ening to the balance of power in Europe as that 
of a marriage between the Due de Montpensier 
and the Infanta; and, indeed, there was much to 
be said for this contention. The ruin which had 
fallen upon the House of Coburg during the Napo- 
leonic wars had apparently only served to multi- 
ply its vitality, for that princely family had by 
now extended itself over Europe in an extraordi- 
nary manner. King Leopold was firmly fixed in 
Belgium; his niece was Queen of England; one 
of his nephews was the husband of the Queen of 
England, and another the husband of the Queen 
of Portugal; yet another was Duke of Wiirtem- 
berg. Where was this to end? There seemed to 
be a Coburg Trust ready to send out one of its 
members at any moment to fill up any vacant 
place among the ruling families of Europe. And 



LORDPALMERSTON 215 

even beyond Europe there were signs of this infec- 
tion spreading. An American who had arrived in 
Brussels had assured King Leopold that there was 
a strong feeling in the United States in favour of 
monarchy instead of the misrule of mobs, and had 
suggested, to the delight of His Majesty, that 
some branch of the Coburg family might be avail- 
able for the position.^ That danger might, per- 
haps, be remote ; but the Spanish danger was close 
at hand; and if Prince Leopold were to marry 
Queen Isabella the position of France would be 
one of humiliation, if not of positive danger. Such 
were the asseverations of Louis Philippe. The 
English Government had no wish to support 
Prince Leopold, and though Albert and Victoria 
had some hankerings for the match, the wisdom 
of Stockmar had induced them to give up all 
thoughts of it. The way thus seemed open for a 
settlement: England would be reasonable about 
Leopold, if France would be reasonable about 
Montpensier. At the Chateau d'Eu, the agree- 
ment was made, in a series of conversations be- 
tween the King and Guizot on the one side, and 
the Queen, the Prince, and Lord Aberdeen on the 
other. Aberdeen, as Foreign Minister, declared 
that England would neither recognise nor support 

1 Letters, I, 611. 



216 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Prince Leopold as a candidate for the hand of the 
Queen of Spain; while Louis Philippe solemnly 
promised, both to Aberdeen and to Victoria, that 
the Due de Montpensier should not marry the 
Infanta Fernanda until after the Queen was mar- 
ried and had issue. All went well, and the crisis 
seemed to be over, when the whole question was 
suddenly re-opened by Palmerston, who had suc- 
ceeded Aberdeen at the Foreign Office. In a 
despatch to the English Minister at Madrid, he 
mentioned, in a list of possible candidates for 
Queen Isabella's hand. Prince Leopold of Coburg ; 
and at the same time he took occasion to denounce 
in violent language the tyranny and incompetence 
of the Spanish Government. This despatch, in- 
discreet in any case, was rendered infinitely more 
so by being communicated to Guizot. Louis 
Philippe saw his opportunity and pounced on it. 
Though there was nothing in Palmerston's lan- 
guage to show that he either recognised or sup- 
ported Prince Leopold, the King at once assumed 
that the English had broken their engagement, 
and that he was therefore free to do likewise. He 
then sent the despatch to the Queen Mother, de- 
clared that the English were intriguing for the 
Coburg marriage, bade her mark the animosity 
of Palmerston against the Spanish Government, 



LORDPALMERSTON 217 

and urged her to escape from her difficulties and 
ensure the friendship of France by marrying Isa- 
bella to the Duke of Cadiz and Fernanda to Mont- 
pensier. The Queen Mother, alarmed and furi- 
ous, was easily convinced. There was only one 
difficulty: Isabella loathed the very sight of her 
cousin. But this was soon surmounted; there was 
a wild supper-party at the Palace, and in the 
course of it the young girl was induced to consent 
to anything that was asked of her. Shortly after, 
and on the same day, both the marriages took 
place. 

The news burst like a bomb on the English 
Government, who saw with rage and mortification 
that they had been completely outmanoeuvred by 
the crafty King. Victoria, in particular, was out- 
raged. Not only had she been the personal recip- 
ient of Louis Philippe's pledge, but he had won 
his way to her heart by presenting the Prince of 
Wales with a box of soldiers and sending the Prin- 
cess Royal a beautiful Parisian doll with eyes that 
opened and shut. And now insult was added to 
injury. The Queen of the French wrote her a 
formal letter, calmly announcing, as a family 
event in which she was sure Victoria would be in- 
terested, the marriage of her son, Montpensier — 
" qui a j outer a a notre bonheur inter ieur, le seuJ, 



218 QUEEN VICTORIA 

vrai dans ce monde, et que vous, madame, savez 
si bien apprecier." ^ But the English Queen had 
not long to wait for her revenge. Within eighteen 
months the monarchy of Louis Philippe, discred- 
ited, unpopular, and fatally weakened by the with- 
drawal of Einglish support, was swept into limbo, 
while he and his family threw themselves as sup- 
pliant fugitives at the feet of Victoria.^ 

II 
In this affair both the Queen and the Prince had 
been too much occupied with the delinquencies of 
Louis Philippe to have any wrath to spare for 
those of Palmerston; and, indeed, on the main 
issue, Palmerston's attitude and their own had 
been in complete agreement. But in this the case 
was unique. In every other foreign complication 
— and they were many and serious — during the 
ensuing years, the differences between the royal 
couple and the Foreign Secretary were constant 
and profound. There was a sharp quarrel over 
Portugal, where violently hostile parties were fly- 
ing at each other's throats. The royal sympathy 
was naturally enlisted on behalf of the Queen and 
her Coburg husband, while Palmerston gave his 

1 Letters, II, 100-1. 

2 Bailing, III, chaps, vii and vlii; Stockmar, chap. xxi. 



LORDPALMERSTON 219 

support to the progressive elements in the coun- 
try. It was not until 1848, however, that the 
strain became really serious. In that year of revo- 
lutions, when, in all directions and with alarming 
frequency, crowns kept rolling off royal heads, 
Albert and Victoria were appalled to find that the 
policy of England was persistently directed — in 
Germany, in Switzerland, in Austria, in Italy, in 
Sicily — so as to favour the insurgent forces. The 
situation, indeed, was just such an one as the soul 
of Palmerston loved. There was danger and ex- 
citement, the necessity of decision, the opportunity 
for action, on every hand. A disciple of Canning, 
with an English gentleman's contempt and dis- 
like of foreign potentates deep in his heart, the 
spectacle of the popular uprisings, and of the 
oppressors bundled ignominiously out of the pal- 
aces they had disgraced, gave him unbounded 
pleasure, and he was determined that there should 
be no doubt whatever, all over the Continent, on 
which side in the great struggle England stood. 
It was not that he had the slightest tincture in 
him of philosophical radicahsm; he had no philo- 
sophical tinctures of any kind; he was quite con- 
tent to be inconsistent — to be a Conservative at 
home and a Liberal abroad. There were very good 
reasons for keeping the Irish in their places; but 



220 QUEEN VICTORIA 

what had that to do with it? The pojnt was this 
— when any decent man read an account of the 
pohtical prisons in Naples his gorge rose. He did 
not want war ; but he saw that without war a skil- 
ful and determined use of England's power might 
do much to further the cause of the Liberals in 
Europe. It was a difficult and a hazardous game 
to play, but he set about playing it with delighted 
alacrity. And then, to his intense annoyance, just 
as he needed all his nerve and all possible freedom 
of action, he found himself being hampered and 
distracted at every turn by . . . those people at 
Osborne. He saw what it was ; the opposition was 
systematic and informed, and the Queen alone 
would have been incapable of it; the Prince was 
at the bottom of the whole thing. It was exceed- 
ingly vexatious; but Palmerston was in a hurry, 
and could not wait; the Prince, if he would insist 
upon interfering, must be brushed on one side. 

Albert was very angry. He highly disapproved 
both of Palmerston's policy and of his methods of 
action. He was opposed to absolutism; but in his 
opinion Palmerston's proceedings were simply cal- 
culated to substitute for absolutism, all over Eu- 
rope, something no better and very possibly worse 
— the anarchy of faction and mob violence. The 
dangers of this revolutionary ferment were grave; 



LORD PALMERS TON 221 

even in England Chartism was rampant — a sinis- 
ter movement, which might at any moment up- 
set the Constitution and abolish the ^lonarchy. 
Surely, with such dangers at home, this was a very 
bad time to choose for encouraging lawlessness 
abroad. He naturally took a particular interest 
in Germany. His instincts, his affections, his pre- 
possessions, were ineradicably German; Stockmar 
was deeply involved in German politics; and he 
had a multitude of relatives among the ruling 
German families, who, from the midst of the 
hurly-burly of revolution, wrote him long and agi- 
tated letters once a week. Having considered the 
question of Germany's future from every point of 
view, he came to the conclusion, under Stockmar's 
guidance, that the great aim for every lover of 
Germany should be her unification under the sov- 
ereignty of Prussia. The intricacy of the situation 
was extreme, and the possibilities of good or evil 
which every hour might bring forth were incalcu- 
lable; yet he saw with horror that Palmerston 
neither understood nor cared to understand the 
niceties of this momentous problem, but rushed on 
blindly, dealing blows to right and left, quite — so 
far as he could see — without system, and even 
without motive — except, indeed, a totally unrea- 
sonable distrust of the Prussian State. 



222 QUEEN VICTORIA 

But his disagreement with the details of Palmer- 
ston's policy was in reality merely a symptom of 
the fundamental differences between the charac- 
ters of the two men. In Albert's eyes Palmerston 
was a coarse, reckless egotist, whose combined 
arrogance and ignorance must inevitably have 
their issue in folly and disaster. Nothing could 
be more antipathetic to him than a mind so 
strangely lacking in patience, in reflection, in prin- 
ciple, and in the habits of ratiocination. For to 
him it was intolerable to think in a hurry, to jump 
to slapdash decisions, to act on instincts that could 
not be explained. Everything must be done in due 
order, with careful premeditation; the premises 
of the position must first be firmly established; 
and he must reach the correct conclusion by a regu- 
lar series of rational steps. In complicated ques- 
tions — and what questions, rightly looked at, were 
not complicated? — ^to commit one's thoughts to 
paper was the wisest course, and it was the course 
which Albert, laborious though it might be, invari- 
ably adopted. It was as well, too, to draw up a 
reasoned statement after an event, as well as be- 
fore it; and accordingly, whatever happened, it 
was always found that the Prince had made a 
memorandum. On one occasion he reduced to six 
pages of foolscap the substance of a confidential 



LORD PALMERS TON 223 

conversation with Sir Robert Peel, and, having 
read them aloud to him, asked him to append his 
signatm-e; Sir Robert, who never liked to commit 
himself, became extremely uneasy ; upon which the 
Prince, understanding that it was necessary to 
humour the singular susceptibilities of English- 
men, with great tact dropped that particular mem- 
orandum into the fire. But as for Palmerston, he 
never even gave one so much as a chance to read 
him a memorandum; he positively seemed to dis- 
like discussion; and, before one knew where one 
was, without any warning whatever, he would 
plunge into some hare-brained, violent project, 
which, as likely as not, would logically involve a 
European war. Closely connected, too, with this 
cautious, painstaking reasonableness of Albert's, 
was his desire to examine questions thoroughly 
from every point of view, to go down to the roots 
of things, and to act in strict accordance with 
some well-defined principle. Under Stockmar's 
tutelage he was constantly engaged in enlarging 
his outlook and in endeavouring to envisage vital 
problems both theoretically and practically — both 
with precision and with depth. To one whose 
mind was thus habitually occupied, the empirical 
activities of Palmerston, who had no notion what 
a principle meant, resembled the incoherent vaga- 



224< QUEEN VICTORIA 

ries of a tiresome child. What did Palmerston 
know of economics, of science, of history? What 
did he care for morahty and education? How 
much consideration had he devoted in the whole 
course of his life to the improvement of the condi- 
tion of the working-classes and to the general 
amelioration of the human race? The answers to 
such questions were all too obvious; and yet it is 
easy to imagine, also, what might have been Pal- 
mer ston's jaunty comment. "Ah! your Royal 
Highness is busy with fine schemes and beneficent 
calculations — exactly! Well, as for me, I must 
say I'm quite satisfied with my morning's work — 
I've had the iron hurdles taken out of the Green 
Park." 

The exasperating man, however, preferred to 
make no comment, and to proceed in smiling 
silence on his inexcusable way. The process of 
" brushing on one side " very soon came into oper- 
ation. Important Foreign Office despatches were 
either submitted to the Queen so late that there 
was no time to correct them, or they were not sub- 
mitted to her at all; or, having been submitted, 
and some passage in them being objected to and 
an alteration suggested, they were after all sent 
off in their original form. The Queen complained; 
the Prince complained; both complained together. 



LORD PALMERS TON 225 

It was quite useless. Palmerston was most apolo- 
getic — could not understand how it had occurred 
— must give the clerks a wigging — certainly Her 
Majesty's wishes should be attended to, and such 
a thing should never happen again. But, of 
course, it very soon happened again, and the royal 
remonstrances redoubled. Victoria, her partisan 
passions thoroughly aroused, imported into her 
protests a personal vehemence which those of Al- 
bert lacked. Did Lord Palmerston forget that 
she was Queen of England? How could she tol- 
erate a state of affairs in which despatches written 
in her name were sent abroad without her approval 
or even her knowledge? What could be more 
derogatory to her position than to be obliged to 
receive indignant letters from the crowned heads 
to whom those despatches were addressed — letters 
which she did not know how to answer, since she 
so thoroughly agreed with them? She addressed 
herself to the Prime Minister. " No remonstrance 
has any effect with Lord Palmerston," she said.^ 
" Lord Palmerston," she told him on another occa- 
sion, " has as usual pretended not to have had time 
to submit the draft to the Queen before he had 
sent it off." ^ She summoned Lord John to her 
presence, poured out her indignation, and after- 

i Letters, II, 181. 2 Jbid., II, 194. 



226 QUEEN VICTORIA 

wards, on the advice of Albert, noted down what 
had passed in a memorandum: "I said that I 
thought that Lord Pahnerston often endangered 
the honour of England by taking a very preju- 
diced and one-sided view of a question; that his 
writings were always as bitter as gall and did 
great harm, which Lord John entirely assented to, 
and that I often felt quite ill from anxiety." ^ 
Then she turned to her uncle. " The state of 
Germany," she wrote in a comprehensive and de- 
spairing review of the European situation, " is 
dreadful, and one does feel quite ashamed about 
that once really so peaceful and happy country. 
That there are still good people there I am sure, 
but they allow themselves to be worked upon in a 
frightful and shameful way. In France a crisis 
seems at hand. What a very bad figure we cut 
in this mediation! Really it is quite immoral, with 
Ireland quivering in our grasp and ready to throw 
off her allegiance at any moment, for us to force 
Austria to give up her lawful possessions.^ What 
shall we say if Canada, Malta, etc., begin to trou- 
ble us? It hurts me terribly."^ But what did 
Lord Palmerston care? 

Lord John's position grew more and more irk- 
some. He did not approve of his colleague's treat- 

1 Letters, II, 195. 2 Venice and Lombardy. 

a Letters, 11, 199. 



LORD PALMERSTON 227 

ment of the Queen. When he begged him to be 
more careful, he was met with the reply that 
28,000 despatches passed through the Foreign 
Office in a single year, that, if every one of these 
were to be subjected to the royal criticism, the de- 
lay would be most serious, that, as it was, the waste 
of time and the worry involved in submitting 
drafts to the meticulous examination of Prince 
Albert was almost too much for an overworked 
Minister, and that, as a matter of fact, the post- 
ponement of important decisions owing to this 
cause had already produced very unpleasant diplo- 
matic consequences/ These excuses would have 
impressed Lord John more favourably if he had 
not himself had to suffer from a similar neglect. 
As often as not Palmerston failed to communicate 
even to him the most important despatches. The 
Foreign Secretary was becoming an almost inde- 
pendent power, acting on his own initiative, and 
swaying the policy of England on his own respon- 
sibility. On one occasion, in 1847, he had actually 
been upon the point of threatening to break off 
diplomatic relations with France without consult- 
ing either the Cabinet or the Prime Minister.^ And 
such incidents were constantly recurring. When 
this became known to the Prince, he saw that his 

T- Letters, II, 221; Ashley, II, 195-6. 2Greville, VI, 65^. 



228 QUEEN VICTORIA 

opportunity had come. If he could only drive in 
to the utmost the wedge between the two states- 
men, if he could only secure the alliance of Lord 
John, then the suppression or the removal of Lord 
Palmerston would be almost certain to follow. 
He set about the business with all the pertinacity 
of his nature. Both he and the Queen put every 
kind of pressure upon the Prime Minister. They 
wrote, they harangued, they relapsed into awful 
silence. It occurred to them that Lord Clarendon, 
an important member of the Cabinet, would be a 
useful channel for their griefs. They commanded 
him to dine at the Palace, and, directly the meal 
was over, " the Queen," as he described it after- 
wards, " exploded, and went with the utmost vehe- 
mence and bitterness into the whole of Palmer- 
ston's conduct, all the effects produced all over 
the world, and all her own feelings and sentiments 
about it." When she had finished, the Prince took 
up the tale, with less excitement, but with equal 
force. Lord Clarendon found himself in an awk- 
ward situation; he disliked Palmerston's policy, 
but he was his colleague, and he disapproved of 
the attitude of his royal hosts. In his opinion, 
they were " wrong in wishing that courtiers rather 
than Ministers should conduct the affau'S of the 
country," and he thought that they " laboured 



LORDPALMERSTON 229 

under the curious mistake that the Foreign Office 
was their peculiar department, and that they had 
the right to control, if not to direct, the foreign 
policy of England." He, therefore, with extreme 
politeness, gave it to be understood that he would 
not commit himself in any way.^ But Lord John, 
in reality, needed no pressure. Attacked by his 
Sovereign, ignored by his Foreign Secretary, he 
led a miserable life.^ With the advent of the 
dreadful Schleswig-Holstein question — the most 
complex in the whole diplomatic history of Europe 
— his position, crushed between the upper and the 
nether mill-stones, grew positively unbearable. He 
became anxious above all things to get Palmerston 
out of the Foreign Office. But then — supposing 
Palmerston refused to go? 

In a memorandum made by the Prince, at about 
this time, of an interview between himself, the 
Queen, and the Prime Minister, we catch a curious 
glimpse of the states of mind of those three high 
personages — the anxiety and irritation of Lord 
John, the vehement acrimony of Victoria, and the 
reasonable animosity of Albert — drawn together, 
as it were, under the shadow of an unseen Pres- 
ence, the cause of that celestial anger — the gay, 

iGreville, VI, 324-^6; Clarendon, I, 341. 
2 Clarendon, I, 337, 342. 



230 QUEEN VICTORIA 

portentous Palmerston. At one point in the con- 
versation Lord John observed that he beheved the 
Foreign Secretary would consent to a change of 
offices; Lord Palmerston, he said, realised that 
he had lost the Queen's confidence — though only 
on public, and not on personal, grounds. But on 
that, the Prince noted, " the Queen interrupted 
Lord John by remarking that she distrusted him 
on personal grounds also, but I remarked that 
Lord Palmerston had so far at least seen rightly; 
that he had become disagreeable to the Queen, not 
on account of his person, but of his political do- 
ings — to which the Queen assented." Then the 
Prince suggested that there was a danger of the 
Cabinet breaking up, and of Lord Palmerston re- 
turning to office as Prime Minister. But on that 
point Lord John was reassuring: he "thought 
Lord Palmerston too old to do much in the future 
(having passed his sixty-fifth year)." Eventually 
it was decided that nothing could be done for the 
present, but that the utmost secrecy must be ob- 
served; and so the conclave ended.^ 

At last, in 1850, deliverance seemed to be at 
hand. There were signs that the public were 
growing weary of the alarums and excursions of 
Palmerston's diplomacy; and when his support of 

r Letters, II, 235-7. 



LORDPALMERSTON 231 

Don Pacifico, a British subject, in a quarrel with 
the Greek Government, seemed to be upon the 
point of involving the country in a war not only 
with Greece but also with France, and possibly 
with Russia into the bargain, a heavy cloud of 
distrust and displeasure appeared to be gathering 
and about to burst over his head. A motion di- 
rected against him in the House of Lords was 
passed by a substantial majority. The question 
was next to be discussed in the House of Com- 
mons, where another adverse vote was not improb- 
able, and would seal the doom of the Minister. 
Palmerston received the attack with complete non- 
chalance, and then, at the last possible moment, he 
struck. In a speech of over four hours, in which 
exposition, invective, argument, declamation, plain 
talk and resounding eloquence were mingled to- 
gether with consummate art and extraordinary 
felicity, he annihilated his enemies. The hostile 
motion was defeated, and Palmerston was once 
more the hero of the hour. Simultaneously, Atro- 
pos herself conspired to favour him. Sir Robert 
Peel was thrown from his horse and killed. By 
this tragic chance, Palmerston saw the one rival 
great enough to cope with him removed from his 
path. He judged — and judged rightly — that he 
was the most popular man in England; and when 



232 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Lord John revived the project of his exchanging 
the Foreign Office for some other position in the 
Cabinet, he absolutely refused to stir/ 

Great was the disappointment of Albert; great 
was the indignation of Victoria. " The House of 
Commons," she wrote, " is becoming very unman- 
ageable and troublesome." ^ The Prince, perceiv- 
ing that Palmerston was more firmly fixed in the 
saddle than ever, decided that something drastic 
must be done. Five months before, the prescient 
Baron had drawn up, in case of emergency, a 
memorandum, which had been carefully docketed, 
and placed in a pigeon-hole ready to hand. The 
emergency had now arisen, and the memorandum 
must be used. The Queen copied out the words 
of Stockmar, and sent them to the Prime Minis- 
ter, requesting him to show her letter to Palmer- 
ston. " She thinks it right," she wrote, " in order 
to prevent any mistake for the future, shortly to 
explain what it is she expects from her Foreign 
Secretary. She requires: (1) That he will dis- 
tinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in 
order that the Queen may know as distinctly to 
what she has given her Royal sanction; (2) Hav- 
ing once given her sanction to a measure, that it 
be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Min- 

1 Letters, II, 261-4. 2 Ibid., II, 253. 



LORDPALMERSTON 233 

ister; such an act she must consider as faihng in 
sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be vis- 
ited by the exercise of her Constitutional right of 
dismissing that Minister." ^ Lord John Russell 
did as he was bid, and forwarded the Queen's let- 
ter to Lord Palmerston. This transaction, which 
was of grave constitutional significance, was en- 
tirely unknown to the outside world. 

If Palmerston had been a sensitive man, he 
would probably have resigned on the receipt of 
the Queen's missive. But he was far from sensi- 
tive; he loved power, and his power was greater 
than ever; an unerring instinct told him that this 
was not the time to go. Nevertheless, he was seri- 
ously perturbed. He understood at last that he 
was struggling with a formidable adversary, whose 
skill and strength, unless they were mollified, 
might do irreparable injury to his career. He 
therefore wrote to Lord John, briefly acquiescing 
in the Queen's requirements — " I have taken a 
copy of this memorandum of the Queen and will 
not fail to attend to the directions which it con- 
tains " — and at the same time, he asked for an 
interview with the Prince. Albert at once simi- 
moned him to the Palace, and was astonished to 
observe, as he noted in a memoKandum, that when 

1 Letters, II, 238 and 264. 



2S4i QUEEN VICTORIA 

Palmer ston entered the room " he was very much 
agitated, shook, and had tears in his eyes, so as 
quite to move me, who never under any circum- 
stances had known him otherwise than with a 
bland smile on his face." The old statesman was 
profuse in protestations and excuses; the young 
one was coldly polite. At last, after a long and 
inconclusive conversation, the Prince, drawing 
himself up, said that, in order to give Lord Pal- 
merston " an example of what the Queen wanted," 
he would " ask him a question point-blank." Lord 
Palmerston waited in respectful silence, while the 
Prince proceeded as follows : — " You are aware 
that the Queen has objected to the Protocol about 
Schleswig, and of the grounds on which she has 
done so. Her opinion has been overruled, the Pro- 
tocol stating the desire of the Great Powers to see 
the integrity of the Danish monarchy preserved 
has been signed, and upon this the King of Den- 
mark has invaded Schleswig, where the war is 
raging. If Holstein is attacked also, which is 
likely, the Germans will not be restrained from fly- 
ing to her assistance ; Russia has menaced to inter- 
fere with arms, if the Schleswigers are successful. 
What will you do, if this emergency arises (pro- 
voking most likely an European war), and which, 
will arise very probably when we shall be at Bal- 



LORD PALMERS TON 235 

moral and Lord John in another part of Scotland? 
The Queen expects from yom- foresight that you 
have contemplated this possibility, and requires a 
categorical answer as to what you would do in the 
event supposed." Strangely enough, to this point- 
blank question, the Foreign Secretary appeared to 
be unable to reply. The whole matter, he said, 
was extremely complicated, and the contingencies 
mentioned by His Royal Highness were very un- 
likely to arise. The Prince persisted; but it was 
useless; for a full hour he struggled to extract a 
categorical answer, until at length Palmerston 
bowed himself out of the room. Albert threw up 
his hands in shocked amazement; what could one 
do with such a man? ^ 

What indeed? For, in spite of all his apologies 
and all his promises, within a few weeks the incor- 
rigible reprobate was at his tricks again. The 
Austrian General Haynau, notorious as a rigor- 
ous suppressor of rebellion in Hungary and Italy, 
and in particular as a flogger of women, came to 
England and took it into his head to pay a visit 
to Messrs. Barclay and Perkins's brewery. The 
features of " General Hyeena," as he was every- 
where called — his grim thin face, his enormous 
pepper-and-salt moustaches — had gained a horrid 

1 Martin, II, 307-10. 



236 QUEEN VICTORIA 

celebrity ; and it so happened that among the clerks 
at the brewery there was a refugee from Vienna, 
who had given his fellow-workers a first-hand ac- 
count of the General's characteristics. The Aus- 
trian Ambassador, scenting danger, begged his 
friend not to appear in public, or, if he must do 
so, to cut off his moustaches first. But the Gen- 
eral would take no advice. He went to the brew- 
ery, was immediately recognised, surrounded by a 
crowd of angry draymen, pushed about, shouted 
at, punched in the ribs, and pulled by the mous- 
taches until, bolting down an alley with the mob 
at his heels brandishing brooms and roaring 
" Hysena! " he managed to take refuge in a public 
house, whence he was removed under the protec- 
tion of several policemen. The Austrian Govern- 
ment was angry and demanded explanations. Pal- 
merston, who, of course, was privately delighted 
by the incident, replied regretting what had oc- 
curred, but adding that in his opinion the General 
had " evinced a want of propriety in coming to 
England at the present moment " ; and he deliv- 
ered his note to the Ambassador without having 
previously submitted it to the Queen or to the 
Prime Minister. Naturally, when this was discov- 
ered, there was a serious storm. The Prince was 
especially indignant; the conduct of the draymen 



LORD PALMERSTON 237 

he regarded, with disgust and alarm, as " a slight 
foretaste of what an unregulated mass of illiterate 
people is capable " ; and Palmerston was requested 
by Lord John to withdraw his note, and to substi- 
tute for it another from which all censure of the 
General had been omitted. On this the Foreign 
Secretary threatened resignation, but the Prime 
Minister was firm. For a moment the royal hopes 
rose high, only to be dashed to the ground again 
by the cruel compliance of the enemy. Palmer- 
ston, suddenly lamblike, agreed to everything; the 
note was withdrawn and altered, and peace was 
patched up once more.* 

It lasted for a year, and then, in October, 1851, 
the arrival of Kossuth in England brought on 
another crisis. Palmerston's desire to receive the 
Hungarian patriot at his house in London was 
vetoed by Lord John ; once more there was a sharp 
struggle; once more Palmerston, after threaten- 
ing resignation, yielded. But still the insubordi- 
nate man could not keep quiet. A few weeks later 
a deputation of Radicals from Finsbury and 
Islington waited on him at the Foreign Office and 
presented him with an address, in which the Em- 
perors of Austria and Russia were stigmatised as 
" odious and detestable assassins " and " merciless 

1 Letters, II, 267-70; Martin, II, 324-7; Ashley, II, 169-70. 



238 QUEEN VICTORIA 

tyrants and despots." The Foreign Secretary in 
his reply, while mildly deprecating these expres- 
sions, allowed his real sentiments to appear with 
a most undiplomatic insouciance. There was an 
immediate scandal, and the Court flowed over with 
rage and vituperation. " I think," said the Baron, 
" the man has been for some time insane." Vic- 
toria, in an agitated letter, urged Lord John to 
assert his authority. But Lord John perceived 
that on this matter the Foreign Secretary had the 
support of public opinion, and he judged it wiser 
to bide his time.^ 

He had not long to wait. The culmination of 
the long series of conflicts, threats, and exacerba- 
tions came before the year was out. On December 
2, Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat took place in 
Paris; and on the following day Palmerston, with- 
out consulting anybody, expressed in a conversa- 
tion with the French Ambassador his approval of 
Napoleon's act. Two days later, he was instructed 
by the Prime Minister, in accordance with a letter 
from the Queen, that it was the policy of the Eng- 
lish Government to maintain an attitude of strict 
neutrality towards the affairs of France. Never- 
theless, in an official despatch to the British Am- 

■i- Letters, II, 324-31; Martin, II, 406-11; Spencer Walpole, II, 
133-7; Stockmar, 642; Greville, VI, 421-4, 



LORDPALMERSTON 239 

bassador in Paris, he repeated the approval of the 
coup dfetat which he had already given verbally to 
the French Ambassador in London. This de- 
spatch was submitted neither to the Queen nor to 
the Prime JMinister. Lord John's patience, as he 
himself said, " was drained to the last drop." He 
dismissed Lord Palmerston.^ 

Victoria was in ecstasies; and Albert knew that 
the triumph was his even more than Lord John's. 
It was his wish that Lord Granville, a young man 
whom he believed to be pliant to his influence, 
should be Palmerston's successor; and Lord Gran- 
ville was appointed. Henceforward, it seemed 
that the Prince would have his way in foreign 
affairs. After years of struggle and mortification, 
success greeted him on every hand. In his family, 
he was an adored master ; in the country, the Great 
Exhibition had brought him respect and glory; 
and now in the secret seats of power he had gained 
a new supremacy. He had wrestled with the ter- 
rible Lord Pahnerston, the embodiment of all that 
was most hostile to him in the spirit of England, 
and his redoubtable opponent had been over- 
thrown.^ Was England herself at his feet? It 
might be so; and yet ... it is said that the sons 

■^Letters, II, 334-43; Martin, II, 411-18; Ashley, II, 200-12; 
Walpole, II, 138-42; Clarendon, I, 338. 
2 Ernest, III, 14. 



240 QUEEN VICTORIA 

of England have a certain tiresome quality: they 
never know when they are beaten. It was odd, 
but Palmerston was positively still jaunty. Was 
it possible? Could he believe, in his blind arro- 
gance, that even his ignominious dismissal from 
office was something that could be brushed aside? 

Ill 

The Prince's triumph was short-lived. A few 
weeks later, owing to Palmerston's influence, the 
Government was defeated in the House, and Lord 
John resigned. Then, after a short interval, a 
coalition between the Whigs and the followers of 
Peel came into power, under the premiership of 
Lord Aberdeen. Once more, Palmerston was in 
the Cabinet. It was true that he did not return 
to the Foreign Office; that was something to the 
good; in the Home Department it might be hoped 
that his activities would be less dangerous and 
disagreeable. But the Foreign Secretary was no 
longer the complacent Granville; and in Lord 
Clarendon the Prince knew that he had a Minister 
to deal with, who, discreet and courteous as he was, 
had a mind of his own. 

These changes, however, were merely the pre- 
liminaries of a far more serious development. 
Events, on every side, were moving towards a 



LORDPALMERSTON 241 

catastrophe. Suddenly the nation found itself 
under the awful shadow of imminent war. For 
several months, amid the shifting mysteries of 
diplomacy and the perplexed agitations of poli- 
tics, the issue grew more doubtful and more dark, 
while the national temper was strained to the 
breaking-point. At the very crisis of the long and 
ominous negotiations, it was announced that Lord 
Palmerston had resigned. Then the pent-up fury 
of the people burst forth. They had felt that in 
the terrible complexity of events they were being 
guided by weak and embarrassed counsels; but 
they had been reassured by the knowledge that at 
the centre of power there was one man with 
strength, with courage, with determination, in 
whom they could put their trust. They now learnt 
that that man was no longer among their leaders. 
Why? In their rage, anxiety, and nervous ex- 
haustion, they looked round desperatelj^ for some 
hidden and horrible explanation of what had oc- 
curred. They suspected plots, they smelt treach- 
ery in the air. It was easy to guess the object 
upon which their frenzy would vent itself. Was 
there not a foreigner in the highest of high places, 
a foreigner whose hostility to their own adored 
champion was unrelenting and unconcealed? The 
moment that Palmerston's resignation was known. 



242 QUEEN VICTORIA 

there was a universal outcry and an extraordi- 
nary tempest of anger and hatred burst, 
with unparalleled violence, upon the head of the 
Prince. 

It was everywhere asserted and believed that 
the Queen's husband was a traitor to the country, 
that he was a tool of the Russian Court, that in 
obedience to Russian influences he had forced Pal- 
merston out of the Government, and that he was 
directing the foreign policy of England in the in- 
terests of England's enemies. For many weeks 
these accusations filled the whole of the press; re- 
peated at public meetings, elaborated in private 
talk, they flew over the country, growing every 
moment more extreme and more improbable. 
While respectable newspapers thundered out their 
grave invectives, halfpenny broadsides, hawked 
through the streets of London, re-echoed in dog- 
gerel vulgarity the same sentiments and the same 
suspicions.^ At last the wildest rumours began to 
spread. 



The Turkish war both far and near 

Has played the very deuce then, 
And little Al, the royal pal. 

They say has turned a Russian; 
Old Aberdeen, as may be seen. 

Looks woeful pale and yellow. 
And Old John Bull had his belly full 

Of dirty Russian tallow. 



LORD PALMERSTON 243 

In January, 1854, it was whispered that the 
Prince had been seized, that he had been found 
guilty of high treason, that he was to be committed 
to the Tower. The Queen herself, some declared, 
had been arrested, and large crowds actually col- 
lected round the Tower to watch the incarceration 
of the royal miscreants/ 

These fantastic hallucinations, the result of the 
fevered atmosphere of approaching war, were de- 
void of any basis in actual fact. Palmerston's res- 

Chorus. 
" We'll send him home and make him groan, 
Oh, Al! you've played the deuce then; 
The German lad has acted sad 
And turned tail with the Russians. 

*' Last Monday night, all in a fright, 

Al out of bed did tumble. 
The German lad was raving mad. 

How he did groan and grumble! 
He cried to Vic, 'I've cut my stick: 

To St. Petersburg go right slap.' 
When Vic, 'tis said, jumped out of bed. 

And wopped him with her night-cap." 

From Lovely Albert! a broadside preserved at the British 
Museum; Martin, II, 539^1; Greville, VII, 127-9. 
1 Martin, II, 540, 562. 

" You Jolly Turks, now go to work. 
And show the Bear your power. 
It is rumoured over Britain's isle 

That A is in the Tower; 

The postmen some suspicion had, 

And opened the two letters, 
'Twas a pity sad the German lad 

Should not have known much better ! " 

Lovely Albert! 



244 QUEEN VICTORIA 

ignation had been in all probability totally discon- 
nected with foreign policy; it had certainly been 
entirely spontaneous, and had surprised the Court 
as much as the nation. Nor had Albert's influence 
been used in any way to favour the interests of 
Russia. As often happens in such cases, the Gov- 
ernment had been swinging backwards and for- 
wards between two incompatible policies — that of 
non-interference and that of threats supported by 
force — either of which, if consistently followed, 
might well have had a successful and peaceful issue, 
but which, mingled together, could only lead to war. 
Albert, with characteristic scrupulosity, attempted 
to thread his way through the complicated labyrinth 
of European diplomacy, and eventually was lost 
in the maze. But so was the whole of the Cabinet ; 
and, when war came, his anti-Russian feelings were 
quite as vehement as those of the most bellicose of 
Englishmen. 

Nevertheless, though the specific charges levelled 
against the Prince were without foundation, there 
were underlying elements in the situation which ex- 
plained, if they did not justify, the popular state of 
mind. It was true that the Queen's husband was a 
foreigner, who had been brought up in a foreign 
Court, was impregnated with foreign ideas, and 
was closely related to a multitude of foreign 



LORD PALMERSTON 245 

princes. Clearly this, though perhaps an unavoid- 
able, was an undesirable, state of affairs; nor were 
the objections to it merely theoretical; it had in fact 
produced unpleasant consequences of a serious 
kind. The Prince's German proclivities were per- 
petually lamented by Enghsh Ministers; Lord 
Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, Lord Aberdeen,^ all 
told the same tale ; and it was constantly necessar}^ 
in grave questions of national policy, to combat the 
prepossessions of a Court in which German views 
and German sentiments held a disproportionate 
place. As for Palmerston, his language on this 
topic was apt to be unbridled. At the height of 
his annoyance over his resignation, he roundly de- 
clared that he had been made a victim to foreign 
intrigue." He afterwards toned down this accu- 
sation; but the mere fact that such a suggestion 
from such a quarter was possible at all showed to 
what unfortunate consequences Albert's foreign 
birth and foreign upbringing might lead. 

But this was not all. A constitutional question 
of the most profound importance was raised by 
the position of the Prince in England. His pres- 

1 " Aberdeen spoke much of the Queen and Prince, of course 
with great praise. He said the Prince's views were generally sound 
and wise, with one exception, which was his violent and incorrigible 
German unionism. He goes all lengths with Prussia." — Greville, 
VI, 305, 

2 Ashley, II, 218. 



246 QUEEN VICTORIA 

ence gave a new prominence to an old problem — 
the precise definition of the functions and the 
powers of the Crown. Those functions and pow- 
ers had become, in effect, his ; and what sort of use . 
was he making of them? His views as to the 
place of the Crown in the Constitution are easily 
ascertainable; for they were Stockmar's; and it 
happens that we possess a detailed account of 
Stockmar's opinions upon the subject in a long 
letter addressed by him to the Prince at the time 
of this very crisis, just before the outbreak of the 
Crimean War. Constitutional Monarchy, accord- 
ing to the Baron, had suffered an eclipse since the 
passing of the Reform Bill. It was now " con- 
stantly in danger of becoming a pure Ministerial 
Government." The old race of Tories, who " had 
a direct interest in upholding the prerogatives of 
the Crown," had died out; and the Whigs were 
" nothing but partly conscious, partly unconscious 
Republicans, who stand in the same relation to the 
Throne as the wolf does to the lamb." There was 
a rule that it was unconstitutional to introduce 
"the name and person of the irresponsible Sov- 
ereign " into parliamentary debates on constitu- 
tional matters; this was "a constitutional fiction, 
which, although undoubtedly of old standing, was 
fraught with danger"; and the Baron warned 



LORD PALMERSTON 247 

the Prince that " if the Enghsh Crown permit a 
Whig Ministry to follow this rule in practice, 
without exception, you must not wonder if in a 
little time you find the majority of the people 
impressed with the belief that the King, in the 
view of the law, is nothing but a mandarin figure, 
which has to nod its head in assent, or shake it in 
denial, as his Minister pleases." To prevent this 
from happening, it was of extreme importance. 
Said the Baron, " that no opportunity should be 
let slip of vindicating the legitimate position of the 
Crown." " And this is not hard to do," he added, 
" and can never embarrass a Minister where such 
straightforward loyal personages as the Queen 
and the Prince are concerned." In his opinion, 
the very lowest claim of the Royal Prerogative 
should include " a right on the part of the King to 
be the permanent President of his Ministerial 
Council." The Sovereign ought to be " in the 
position of a permanent Premier, who takes rank 
above the temporary head of the Cabinet, and in 
matters of discipline exercises supreme authority." 
The Sovereign " may even take a part in the initi- 
ation and the maturing of the Government meas- 
ures; for it would be unreasonable to expect that 
a king, himself as able, as accomplished, and as 
patriotic as the best of his Ministers, should be 



248 QUEEN VICTORIA 

prevented from making use of these qualities at 
the dehberations of his Council." " The judicious 
exercise of this right," concluded the Baron, 
" which certainly requires a master mind, would 
not only be the best guarantee for Constitutional 
Monarchy, but would raise it to a height of power, 
stability, and symmetry, which has never been 
attained." ^ 

Now it may be that this reading of the Constitu- 
tion is a possible one, though indeed it is hard to 
see how it can be made compatible with the funda- 
mental doctrine of ministerial responsibility. Wil- 
liam III presided over his Council, and he was a 
constitutional monarch; and it seems that Stock- 
mar had in his mind a conception of the Crown 
which would have given it a place in the Constitu- 
tion analogous to that which it filled at the time 
of William III. But it is clear that such a theory, 
which would invest the Crown with more power 
than it possessed even under George III, runs 
counter to the whole development of English pub- 
lic life since the Revolution; and the fact that it 
was held by Stockmar, and instilled by him into 
Albert, was of very serious importance. For there 
was good reason to believe not only that these doc- 
trines were held by Albert in theory, but that he 

1 Martin, II, 545-57. 



LORD PALMERSTON 249 

was making a deliberate and sustained attempt to 
give them practical validity. The history of the 
struggle between the Crown and Palmerston pro- 
vided startling evidence that this was the case. 
That struggle reached its culmination when, in 
Stockmar's memorandum of 1850, the Queen as- 
serted her " constitutional right " to dismiss the 
Foreign Secretary if he altered a despatch which 
had received her sanction. The memorandum 
was, in fact, a plain declaration that the Crown 
intended to act independently of the Prime Min- 
ister. Lord John Russell, anxious at all costs to 
strengthen himself against Palmerston, accepted 
the memorandum, and thereby implicitly allowed 
the claim of the Crown. More than that ; after the 
dismissal of Palmerston, among the grounds on 
which Lord John justified that dismissal in the 
House of Commons he gave a prominent place to 
the memorandum of 1850. It became apparent 
that the displeasure of the Sovereign might be a 
reason for the removal of a powerful and popular 
Minister. It seemed indeed as if, under the guid- 
ance of Stockmar and Albert, the " Constitutional 
Monarchy " might in very truth be rising " to a 
height of power, stability, and symmetry, which 
had never been attained." 

But this new development in the position of the 



150 QUEEN VICTORIA 

>own, grave as it was in itself, was rendered 
)eculiarly disquieting by the unusual circum- 
tances which surrounded it. For the functions of 
he Crown were now, in effect, being exercised by 
L person unknown to the Constitution, who 
yielded over the Sovereign an undefined and un- 
)ounded influence. The fact that this person was 
he Sovereign's husband, while it explained his 
nfluence and even made it inevitable, by no means 
liminished its strange and momentous import. An 
imbiguous, prepotent figure had come to disturb 
;he ancient, subtle, and jealously guarded balance 
)f the English Constitution. Such had been the 
mexpected outcome of the tentative and faint- 
learted opening of Albert's political life. He 
limself made no attempt to minimise either the 
multiplicity or the significance of the functions he 
performed. He considered that it was his duty, he 
told the Duke of Wellington in 1850, to " sink his 
own individual existence in that of his wife . . . 
— assume no separate responsibility before the 
public, but make his position entirely a part of 
hers — fill up every gap which, as a woman, she 
would naturally leave in the exercise of her regal 
functions — continually and anxiously watch every 
part of the public business, in order to be able to 
advise and assist her at any moment in any of the 






LORDPALMERSTON 251 

multifarious and difficult questions or duties 
brought before her, sometimes international, some- 
times political, or social, or personal. As the nat- 
ural head of her family, superintendent of her 
household, manager of her private affairs, sole 
confidential adviser in politics, and only assistant 
in her communications with the officers of the Gov- 
ernment, he is, besides, the husband of the Queen, 
the tutor of the royal children, the private secre- 
tary of the Sovereign, and her permanent minis- 
ter." ^ Stockmar's pupil had assuredly gone far 
and learnt well. Stockmar's pupil! — precisely; 
the public, painfully aware of Albert's predom- 
inance, had grown, too, uneasily conscious that 
Victoria's master had a master of his own. Deep 
in the darkness the Baron loomed. Another for- 
eigner! Decidedly, there were elements in the sit- 
uation which went far to justify the popular 
alarm. A foreign Baron controlled a foreign 
Prince, and the foreign Prince controlled the 
Crown of England. And the Crown itself was 
creeping forward ominously; and when, from un- 
der its shadow, the Baron and the Prince had 
frowned, a great Minister, beloved of the people, 
had fallen. Where was all this to end? 
Within a few weeks Palmerston withdrew his 

1 Martin, II, 259-60. 



252 QUEEN VICTORIA 

resignation, and the public frenzy subsided as 
quickly as it had arisen. When Parliament met, 
the leaders of both the parties in both the Houses 
made speeches in favour of the Prince, asserting 
his unimpeachable loyalty to the country and vin- 
dicating his right to advise the Sovereign in all 
matters of State. Victoria was delighted. " The 
position of my beloved lord and master," she told 
the Baron, " has been defined for once and all and 
his merits have been acknowledged on all sides 
most duly. There was an immense concourse of 
people assembled when we went to the House of 
Lords, and the people were very friendly." ^ Im- 
mediately afterwards, the country finally plunged 
into the Crimean War. In the struggle that fol- 
lowed, Albert's patriotism was put beyond a 
doubt, and the animosities of the past were for- 
gotten. But the war had another consequence, 
less gratifying to the royal couple: it crowned the 
ambition of Lord Palmer ston. In 1855, the man 
who five years before had been pronounced by 
Lord John Russell to be "too old to do much in 
the future," became Prime Minister of England, 
and, with one short interval, remained in that posi- 
tion for ten years. 

1 Martin, II, 663^. 



CHAPTER VI 
LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 

I 
The weak-willed youth who took no interest in 
politics and never read a newspaper had grown 
into a man of unbending determination whose 
tireless energies were incessantly concentrated 
upon the laborious business of government and 
the highest questions of State. He was busy now 
from morning till night. In the winter, before 
the dawn, he was to be seen, seated at his writing- 
table, working by the light of the green reading- 
lamp which he had brought over with him from 
Germany, and the construction of which he had 
much improved by an ingenious device. Victoria 
was early too, but she was not so early as Albert; 
and when, in the chill darkness, she took her seat 
at her own writing-table, placed side by side with 
his, she invariably found upon it a neat pile of 
papers arranged for her inspection and her signa- 
ture.^ The day, thus begun, continued in unre- 
mitting industry. At breakfast, the newspapers — 

1 Martin, II, 161. 

253 



254! QUEEN VICTORIA 

the once hated newspapers — made theu' appear- 
ance, and the Prince, absorbed in their perusal, 
would answer no questions, or, if an article struck 
him, would read it aloud. After that there were 
ministers and secretaries to interview; there was 
a vast correspondence to be carried on; there were 
numerous memoranda to be made. Victoria, treas- 
uring every word, preserving every letter, was all 
breathless attention and eager obedience. Some- 
times Albert would actually ask her advice. He 
consulted her about his English : " Lese recht auf- 
merksam, und sage wenn irgend ein Fehler ist," ^ 
he would say; or, as he handed her a draft for her 
signature, he would observe, " Ich hab' Dir hier 
ein Draft gemacht, lese es mal! Ich dachte es 
ware recht so." ^ Thus the diligent, scrupulous, 
absorbing hours passed by. Fewer and fewer 
grew the moments of recreation and of exercise. 
The demands of society were narrowed down to 
the smallest limits, and even then but grudgingly 
attended to. It was no longer a mere pleasure, 
it was a positive necessity, to go to bed as early 
as possible in order to be up and at work on the 
morrow betimes.^ 

1 " Read this carefully, and tell me if there are any mistakes in it.'* 
2 " Here is a draft I have made for you. Read it. I should 
think this would do." 
3 Martin, V, 273-5. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 255 

The important and exacting business of gov- 
ernment, which became at last the dominating pre- 
occupation in Albert's mind, still left unimpaired 
his old tastes and interests; he remained devoted 
to art, to science, to philosophy; and a multitude 
of subsidiary activities showed how his energies 
increased as the demands upon them grew. For 
whenever duty called, the Prince was all alertness. 
With indefatigable perseverance he opened muse- 
ums, laid the foundation stones of hospitals, made 
speeches to the Royal Agricultural Society, and 
attended meetings of the British Association.^ The 
National Gallery particularly interested him: he 
drew up careful regulations for the arrangement of 
the pictures according to schools ; and he attempted 
— though in vain — to have the whole collection 
transported to South Kensington.^ Feodora, now 
the Princess Hohenlohe, after a visit to England, 
expressed in a letter to Victoria her admiration of 
Albert both as a private and a public character. 
Nor did she rely only on her own opinion. " I 
must just copy out," she said, " what Mr. Klumpp 
wrote to me some little time ago, and which is 
quite true — 'Prince Albert is one of the few 
Royal personages who can sacrifice to any prin- 
ciple (as soon as it has become evident to them to 

1 Martin, II, 379. 2 Martin, IV, 14-15, 60. 



256 QUEEN VICTORIA 

be good and noble) all those notions (or senti- 
ments) to which others, owing to their narrow- 
mindedness, or to the prejudices of their rank, are 
so thoroughly inclined strongly to cling.' — There 
is something so truly religious in this," the Prin- 
cess added, " as well as humane and just, most 
soothing to my feelings which are so often hurt 
and disturbed by what I hear and see." ^ 

Victoria, from the depth of her heart, subscribed 
to all the eulogies of Feodora and Mr. Klumpp. 
She only found that they were insufficient. As 
she watched her beloved Albert, after toiling with 
state documents and public functions, devoting 
every spare moment of his time to domestic du- 
ties, to artistic appreciation, and to intellectual 
improvements; as she listened to him cracking his 
jokes at the luncheon table, or playing Mendels- 
sohn on the organ, or pointing out the merits of Sir 
Edwin Landseer's pictures; as she followed him 
round while he gave instructions about the breed- 
ing of cattle, or decided that the Gainsboroughs 
must be hung higher up so that the Winterhalters 
might be properly seen — she felt perfectly certain 
that no other wife had ever had such a husband. 
His mind was apparently capable of everything, 
and she was hardly surprised to learn that he had 

1 Martin, II, 479. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 257 

made an important discovery for the conversion 
of sewage into agricultural manure. Filtration 
from below upwards, he explained, through some 
appropriate medium, which retained the solids and 
set free the fluid sewage for irrigation, was the 
principle of the scheme. " All previous plans," he 
said, " would have cost millions ; mine costs next 
to nothing." Unfortunately, owing to a slight 
miscalculation, the invention proved to be imprac- 
ticable; but Albert's intelligence was unrebuffed, 
and he passed on, to plunge with all his accus- 
tomed ardour into a prolonged study of the rudi- 
ments of lithography.^ 

But naturally it was upon his children that his 
private interests and those of Victoria were con- 
centrated most vigorously. The royal nurseries 
showed no sign of emptying. The birth of the 
Prince Arthur in 1850 was followed, three years 
later, by that of the Prince Leopold; and in 1857 
the Princess Beatrice was born. A family of nine 
must be, in any circumstances, a grave responsi- 
bility ; and the Prince realised to the full how much 
the high destinies of his offspring intensified the 
need of parental care. It was inevitable that he 
should believe profoundly in the importance of 
education; he himself had been the product of 

1 Martin, II, 251-2; Bloomfield, II, 110. 



258 QUEEN VICTORIA 

education; Stockmar had made him what he was; 
it was for him, in his turn, to be a Stockmar — to 
be even more than a Stockmar — to the young crea- 
tures he had brought into the world. Victoria 
would assist him; a Stockmar, no doubt, she could 
hardly be; but she could be perpetually vigilant, 
she could mingle strictness with her affection, and 
she could always set a good example. These con- 
siderations, of course, applied pre-eminently to 
the education of the Prince of Wales. How tre- 
mendous was the significance of every particle of 
influence which went to the making of the future 
King of England! Albert set to work with a will. 
But, watching with Victoria the minutest details 
of the physical, intellectual, and moral training of 
his children, he soon perceived, to his distress, that 
there was something unsatisfactory in the develop- 
ment of his eldest son. The Princess Royal was 
an extremely intelligent child; but Bertie, though 
he was good-humoured and gentle, seemed to dis- 
play a deep-seated repugnance to every form of 
mental exertion. This was most regrettable, but 
the remedy was obvious: the parental efforts must 
be redoubled; instruction must be multiplied; not 
for a single instant must the educational pressure 
be allowed to relax. Accordingly, more tutors 
were selected, the curriculum was revised, the 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 259 

time-table of studies was rearranged, elaborate 
memoranda dealing with every possible contin- 
gency were drawn up. It was above all essential 
that there should be no slackness: "work," said 
the Prince, " must be work." And work indeed it 
was. The boy grew up amid a ceaseless round pf 
paradigms, syntactical exercises, dates, genealogi- 
cal tables, and lists of capes. Constant notes flew 
backwards and forwards between the Prince, the 
Queen, and the tutors, with inquiries, with reports 
of progress, with detailed recommendations; and 
these notes were all carefully preserved for future 
reference. It was, besides, vital that the heir to 
the throne should be protected from the slightest 
possibility of contamination from the outside 
world. The Prince of Wales was not as other 
boys; he might, occasionally, be allowed to invite 
some sons of the nobility, boys of good character, 
to play with him in the garden of Buckingham 
Palace ; but his father presided, with alarming pre- 
cision, over their sports. In short, every possible 
precaution was taken, every conceivable effort was 
made. Yet, strange to say, the object of all this 
vigilance and solicitude continued to be unsatis- 
factory — appeared, in fact, to be positively grow- 
ing worse. It was certainly very odd: the more 
lessons that Bertie had to do, the less he did them; 



260 QUEEN VICTORIA 

and the more carefully he was guarded against 
excitements and frivolities, the more desirous of 
mere amusement he seemed to become. Albert 
was deeply grieved and Victoria was sometimes 
very angry ; but grief and anger produced no more 
effect than supervision and time-tables. The 
Prince of Wales, in spite of everything, grew up 
into manhood without the faintest sign of " adher- 
ence to and perseverance in the plan both of 
studies and life " — as one of the Royal memoranda 
put it — which had been laid down with such ex- 
traordinary forethought by his father.^ 

II 

Against the insidious worries of politics, the 
boredom of society functions, and the pompous 
publicity of state ceremonies, Osborne had afforded 
a welcome refuge; but it soon appeared that even 
Osborne was too little removed from the world. 
After all, the Solent was a feeble barrier. Oh, for 
some distant, some almost inaccessible sanctuary, 
where, in true domestic privacy, one could make 
happy holiday, just as if — or at least very, very, 
nearly — one were anybody else! Victoria, ever 
since, together with Albert, she had visited Scot- 

^D.N.B., Second Supplement, Art. "Edward VII"; Quarterly 
Review, ecxiii, 4-7, 16 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 261 

land in the early years of her marriage, had felt 
that her heart was in the Highlands. She had 
returned to them a few years later, and her pas- 
sion had grown. How romantic they were! And 
how Albert enjoyed them too! His spirits rose 
quite wonderfully as soon as he found himself 
among the hills and the conifers. " It is a happi- 
ness to see him," she wrote. "Oh! What can 
equal the beauties of nature ! " she exclaimed in 
her journal, during one of these visits. " What 
enjoyment there is in them! Albert enjoys it so 
much ; he is in ecstasies here." " Albert said," 
she noted next day, " that the chief beauty of 
mountain scenery consists in its frequent changes. 
We came home at six o'clock." Then she went 
on a longer expedition — up to the very top of a 
high hill. " It was quite romantic. Here we were 
with only this Highlander behind us holding the 
ponies (for we got off twice and walked about). 
. . . We came home at half-past eleven, — the 
most delightful, most romantic ride and walk I 
ever had. I had never been up such a mountain, 
and then the day was so fine." The Highlanders, 
too, were such astonishing people. They " never 
make difficulties," she noted, " but are cheerful, 
and happy, and merry, and ready to walk, and 
run, and do anything." As for Albert he " highly 



262 QUEEN VICTORIA 

appreciated the good-breeding, simplicity, and in- 
telligence, which make it so pleasant and even in- 
structive to talk to them." " We were always in 
the habit," wrote Her Majesty, "of conversing 
with the Highlanders — with whom one comes so 
much in contact in the Highlands." She loved 
everything about them — their customs, their dress, 
their dances, even their musical instruments. 
" There were nine pipers at the castle," she wrote, 
after staying with Lord Breadalbane; " sometimes 
one and sometimes three played. They always 
played about breakfast-time, again during the 
morning, at luncheon, and also whenever we went 
in and out; again before dinner, and during most 
of dinner-time. We both have become quite fond 
of the bag-pipes." ^ 

It was quite impossible not to wish to return 
to such pleasures again and again; and in 1848 
the Queen took a lease of Balmoral House, a small 
residence near Braemar in the wilds of Aberdeen- 
shire. Four years later she bought the place out- 
right. Now she could be really happy every sum- 
mer; now she could be simple and at her ease; now 
she could be romantic every evening, and dote 
upon Albert, without a single distraction, all day 
long. The diminutive scale of the house was in 

T- Leaves, 18, 33, 34, 36, 127-8, 132n. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 263 

itself a charm. Nothing was more amusing than 
to find oneself living in two or three little sitting- 
rooms, with the children crammed away upstairs, 
and the minister in attendance with only a tiny 
bedroom to do all his work in. And then to be 
able to run in and out of doors as one liked, and 
to sketch, and to walk, and to watch the red deer 
coming so sm'prisingly close, and to pay visits to 
the cottagers! And occasionally one could be 
more adventurous still — one could go and stay for 
a night or two at the Bothie at Alt-na-giuthasach 
— a mere couple of huts with " a wooden addi- 
tion " — and only eleven people in the whole party! 
And there were mountains to be climbed and 
cairns to be built in solemn pomp. " At last, when 
the cairn, which is, I think, seven or eight feet 
high, was nearly completed, Albert climbed up to 
the top of it, and placed the last stone ; after which 
three cheers were given. It was a gay, pretty, 
and touching sight; and I felt almost inclined to 
cry. The view was so beautiful over the dear hills ; 
the day so fine ; the whole so gemiitJilich/' ^ And 
in the evening there were sword-dances and reels. 
But Albert had determined to pull down the 
little old house, and to build in its place a castle 
of his own designing. With great ceremony, in 

^Leaves, 7^-4, 95-6; Greville, VI, 30a-4. 



264 QUEEN VICTORIA 

accordance with a memorandum drawn up by the 
Prince for the occasion, the foundation-stone of 
the new edifice was laid,^ and by 1855 it was habit- 
able. Spacious, built of granite in the Scotch 
baronial style, with a tower 100 feet high, and 
minor turrets and castellated gables, the castle was 
skilfully arranged to command the finest views of 
the surrounding mountains and of the neighbour- 
ing river Dee. Upon the interior decorations Al- 
bert and Victoria lavished all their care. The wall 
and the floors were of pitch-pine, and covered with 
specially manufactured tartans. The Balmoral 
tartan, in red and grey, designed by the Prince, and 
the Victoria tartan, with a white stripe, designed by 
the Queen, were to be seen in every room: there 
were tartan curtains, and tartan chair-covers, and 
even tartan linoleums. Occasionally the Royal 
Stuart tartan appeared, for Her Majesty always 
maintained that she was an ardent Jacobite. 
Water-colour sketches by Victoria hung upon the 
walls, together with innumerable stags' antlers, 
and the head of a boar, which had been shot by 
Albert in Germany. In an alcove in the hall," 
stood a life-sized statue of Albert in Highland 
dress.^ 

1 Leaves, 99-100. 

'^Private Life, 209-11; Quarterly Review, cxciiij 335. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 265 

Victoria declared that it was perfection. " E very- 
year," she wrote, "my heart becomes more fixed 
in this dear paradise, and so much more so now, 
that all has become my dear Albert's own creation, 
own work, own building, own lay-out; . . . and 
his great taste, and the impress of his dear hand, 
have been stamped everywhere." ^ 

And here, in very truth, her happiest days were 
passed. In after years, when she looked back 
upon them, a kind of glory, a radiance as of an 
unearthly holiness, seemed to glow about these 
golden hours. Each hallowed moment stood out 
clear, beautiful, eternally significant. For, at the 
time, every experience there, sentimental, or grave, 
or trivial, had come upon her with a peculiar viv- 
idness, like a flashing of marvellous lights. Al- 
bert's stalkings — an evening walk when she lost 
her way — Vicky sitting down on a wasps' nest — a 
torchlight dance — with what intensity such things, 
and ten thousand like them, impressed themselves 
upon her eager consciousness! And how she flew 
to her journal to note them down! The news of 
the Duke's death! What a moment! — when, as 
she sat sketching after a picnic by a loch in the 
lonely hills. Lord Derby's letter had been brought 
to her, and she had learnt that ''England's, or 

"i- Leaves, 103, 111. 



266 QUEEN VICTORIA 

rather Britainfs pride, her glory, her hero, the 
greatest man she had ever produced, was no 
more!" For such were here reflections upon the 
" old rebel " of former days. But that past had 
been utterly obliterated — no faintest memory of 
it remained. For years she had looked up to the 
Duke as a figure almost superhuman. Had he not 
been a supporter of good Sir Robert? Had he 
not asked Albert to succeed him as commander- 
in-chief? And what a proud moment it had been 
when he stood as sponsor to her son Arthur, who 
was born on his eighty-first birthday! So now 
she filled a whole page of her diary with pane- 
gyrical regrets. " His position was the highest 
a subject ever had — above party, — looked up to 
by all, — revered by the whole natlbn, — ^the friend 
of the Sovereign . . . The Crown never pos- 
sessed, — and I fear never will — so devoted, loyal, 
and faithful a subject, so staunch a supporter! 
To us his loss is irreparable . . . To Albert he 
showed the greatest kindness and the utmost con- 
fidence . . . Not an eye will be dry in the whole 
country." ^ These were serious thoughts; but they 
were soon succeeded by others hardlj^ less moving 
—by events as impossible to forget — by Mr. Mac- 
Leod's sermon on Nicodemus, — by the gift of a 

''■Leaves, 92-4. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 267 

red flannel petticoat to Mrs. P. Farquharson, and 
another to old Kitty Kear/ 

But, without doubt, most memorable, most de- 
lightful of all were the expeditions — the rare, 
exciting expeditions up distant mountains, across 
broad rivers, through strange country, and lasting 
several days. With only two gillies — Grant and 
Brown — for servants, and with assumed names 
... it was more like something in a story than 
real life. " We had decided to call ourselves Lord 
and Lady Churchill and party — Lady Churchill 
passing as Miss Spencer and General Grey as 
Dr. Grey! Brown once forgot this and called me 
' Your Majesty ' as I was getting into the car- 
riage, and Grant on the box once called Albert 
' Your Royal Highness,' which set us off laugh- 
ing, but no one observed it." Strong, vigorous, 
enthusiastic, bringing, so it seemed, good fortune 
with her — the Highlanders declared she had " a 
lucky foot " — she relished everything — the scram- 
bles and the views and the contretemps and the 
rough inns with their coarse fare and Brown and 
Grant waiting at table. She could have gone on 
for ever and ever, absolutely happy with Albert 
beside her and Brown at her pony's head. But 
the time came for turning homewards; alas! the 

^Lea/ves, 102, 113-4. 



268 QUEEN VICTORIA 

time came for going back to England. She could 
hardly bear it; she sat disconsolate in her room 
and watched the snow falling. The last day! Oh! 
If only she could be snowed up ! ^ 

III 
The Crimean War brought new experiences, and 
most of them were pleasant ones. It was pleasant 
to be patriotic and pugnacious, to look out appro- 
priate prayers to be read in the churches, to have 
news of glorious victories, and to know oneself, 
more proudly than ever, the representative of 
England. With that spontaneity of feeling which 
was so peculiarly her own, Victoria poured out 
her emotion, her admiration, her pity, her love, 
upon her " dear soldiers." When she gave them 
their medals her exultation knew no bounds. 
"Noble fellows!" she wrote to the King of the 
Belgians. " I own I feel as if these were my 
own cMldi'en; my heart beats for them as for my 
nearest and dearest. They were so touched, so 
pleased; many, I hear, cried — and they won't hear 
of giving up their medals to have their names en- 
graved upon them for fear they should not re- 
ceive the identical one put into tlieir hands by me, 
v/hich is quite touching. Several came by in a 

-i- Leaves, 72, 117, 137. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 269 

sadly mutilated state." ^ She and thej^ were at 
one. They felt that she had done them a splendid 
honour, and she, with perfect genuineness, shared 
their feeling. Albert's attitude towards such 
things was different; there was an austerity in 
him which quite prohibited the expansions of emo- 
tion. When General Wilhams returned from the 
heroic defence of Kars and was presented at 
Court, the quick, stiff, distant bow with which the 
Prince received him struck like ice upon the be- 
holders." He was a stranger still. 

But he had other things to occupy him, more 
important, surely, than the personal impressions 
of military officers and people who went to Court. 
He was at work — ceaselessly at work — on the tre- 
mendous task of carrying through the war to a 
successful conclusion. State papers, despatches, 
memoranda, poured from him in an overwhelming 
stream. Between 1853 and 1857 fifty folio vol- 
umes were filled with the comments of his pen 
upon the Eastern question.^ Nothing would in- 
duce him to stop. Weary ministers staggered 
under the load of his advice; but his advice con- 
tinued, piling itself up over their writing-tables, 
and flowing out upon them from red box after red 

1 Letters, III, 127. 2 Private information. 

3 Martin, III, v. 



270 QUEEN VICTORIA 

box. Nor was it advice to be ignored. The talent 
for administration which had reorganised the royal 
palaces and planned the Great Exhibition asserted 
itself no less in the confused complexities of war. 
Again and again the Prince's suggestions, rejected 
or unheeded at first, were adopted under the stress 
of circumstances and found to be full of value. 
The enrolment of a foreign legion, the establish- 
ment of a depot for troops at Malta, the institu- 
tion of periodical reports and tabulated returns 
as to the condition of the army at Sebastopol — 
such were the contrivances and the achievements 
of his indefatigable brain. He went further: in a 
lengthy minute he laid down the lines for a radi- 
cal reform in the entire administration of the 
army. This was premature, but his proposal that 
" a camp of evolution " should be created, in which 
troops should be concentrated and drilled, proved 
to be the germ of Aldershot.^ 

Meanwhile Victoria had made a new friend: 
she had suddenly been captivated by Napoleon 
III. Her dislike of him had been strong at first. 
She considered that he was a disreputable adven- 
turer who had usurped the throne of poor old 
Louis Philippe; and besides he was hand-in-glove 
with Lord Palmerston. For a long time, although 

1 Martin, III, 146-7, 168-9, 177-9, 190n. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 271 

he was her ally, she was unwilling to meet him; 
but at last a visit of the Emperor and Empress 
to England was arranged. Directly he appeared 
at Windsor her heart began to soften. She found 
that she was charmed by his quiet manners, his 
low, soft voice, and by the soothing simplicity of 
his conversation. The good-will of England was 
essential to the Emperor's position in Europe, 
and he had determined to fascinate the Queen. 
He succeeded. There was something deep within 
her which responded immediately and vehemently 
to natures that offered a romantic contrast with 
her own. Her adoration of Lord Melbourne was 
intimately interwoven with her half-unconscious 
appreciation of the exciting unlikeness between 
herself and that sophisticated, subtle, aristocratical 
old man. Very different was the quality of her 
unlikeness to Napoleon; but its quantity was at 
least as great. From behind the vast solidity of 
her respectability, her conventionality, her estab- 
lished happiness, she peered out with a strange 
delicious pleasure at that unfamiliar, darkly-glit- 
tering foreign object, moving so meteorically be- 
fore her, an ambiguous creature of wilfulness and 
Destiny. And, to her surprise, where she had 
dreaded antagonisms, she discovered only sympa- 
thies. He was, she said, " so quiet, so simple, naif 



272 QUEEN VICTORIA 

even, so pleased to be informed about things he 
does not know, so gentle, so full of tact, dignity, 
and modesty, so full of kind attention towards us, 
never saying a word, or doing a thing, which could 
put me out . . . There is something fascinating, 
melancholy, and engaging, which draws you to 
him, in spite of any prevention you may have 
against him, and certainly without the assistance 
of any outward appearance, though I like his 
face." She observed that he rode " extremely well, 
and looks well on horseback, as he sits high." 
And he danced " with great dignity and spirit." 
Above all, he listened to Albert; listened with the 
most respectful attention; showed, in fact, how 
pleased he was " to be informed about things he 
did not know " ; and afterwards was heard to de- 
clare that he had never met the Prince's equal. 
On one occasion, indeed — but only on one — ^he 
had seemed to grow slightly restive. In a diplo- 
matic conversation, " I expatiated a little on the 
Holstein question," wrote the Prince in a memo- 
randum, " which appeared to bore the Emperor 
as ' tres-compliquee/ '' * 

Victoria, too, became much attached to the Em- 
press, whose looks and graces she admired without 
a touch of jealousy. Eugenie, indeed, in the plen- 

1 Martin, III, 242, 245, 351; IV, 111. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 273 

itude of her beauty, exquisitely dressed in wonder- 
ful Parisian crinolines which set off to perfection 
her tall and willowy figure, might well have caused 
some heartburning in the breast of her hostess, 
who, very short, rather stout, quite plain, in garish 
middle-class garments, could hardly be expected 
to feel at her best in such company. But Victoria 
had no misgivings. To her it mattered nothing 
that her face turned red in the heat and that her 
purple pork-pie hat was of last year's fashion, 
while Eugenie, cool and modish, floated in an in- 
finitude of flounces by her side. She was Queen 
of England, and was not that enough? It cer- 
tainly seemed to be; true majesty was hers, and 
she knew it. More than once, when the two were 
together in public^ it was the woman to whom, as 
it seemed, nature and art had given so little, who, 
by the sheer force of an inherent grandeur, com- 
pletely threw her adorned and beautiful compan- 
ion into the shade. ^ 

There were tears when the moment came for 
parting, and Victoria felt " quite wehmiithig" as 
her guests went away from Windsor. But be- 
fore long she and Albert paid a retm'n visit to 
France, where everything was very delightful, and 
she drove incognito through the streets of Paris 

"i- Quarterly Review, cxciii, 313-4; Spinster Lady, 7. 



274* QUEEN VICTORIA 

in a " common bonnet," and saw a play in the 
theatre at St. Cloud, and, one evening, at a great 
party given by the Emperor in her honour at the 
Chateau of Versailles, talked a little to a distin- 
guished-looking Prussian gentleman, whose name 
was Bismarck. Her rooms were furnished so 
much to her taste that she declared they gave her 
quite a home feeling — that, if her little dog were 
there, she should really imagine herself at home. 
Nothing was said, but three days later her little 
dog barked a welcome to her as she entered 
the apartments. The Emperor himself, sparing 
neither trouble nor expense, had personally ar- 
ranged the charming surprise.^ Such were his 
attentions. She returned to England more en- 
chanted than ever. " Strange indeed," she ex- 
claimed, " are the dispensations and ways of Prov- 
idence!"^ 

The alliance prospered, and the war drew 
towards a conclusion. Both the Queen and the 
Prince, it is true, were most anxious that there 
should not be a premature peace. When Lord 
Aberdeen wished to open negotiations Albert at- 
tacked him in a " geharniscJiten'* letter, while 
Victoria rode about on horseback reviewing the 
troops. At last, however, Sebastopol was cap- 

1 Crawford, 311-2. 2 Martin, III, 360. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 275 

tured. The news reached Bahiioral late at night, 
and " in a few minutes Albert and all the gentle- 
men in every species of attire sallied forth, fol- 
lowed by all the servants, and gradually by all the 
population of the village — keepers, gillies, work- 
men — up to the top of the cairn." A bonfire was 
lighted, the pipes were played, and guns were shot 
off. " About three-quarters of an hour after 
Albert came down and said the scene had been 
wild and exciting beyond everything. The people 
had been drinking healths in whisky and were in 
great ecstasy." ^ The " great ecstasy," perhaps, 
would be replaced by other feelings next morning; 
but at any rate the war was over — though, to be 
sure, its end seemed as difficult to account for as 
its beginning. The dispensations and ways of 
Providence continued to be strange. 

IV 

An unexpected consequence of the war was a 
complete change in the relations between the royal 
pair and Palmerston. The Prince and the Minis- 
ter drew together over their hostility to Russia, 
and thus it came about that when Victoria found 
it necessary to summon her old enemy to form an 
administration she did so without reluctance. The 

1 Leaves, 105-6. 



276 QUEEN VICTORIA 

premiership, too, had a sobering effect upon Pal- 
merston; he grew less impatient and dictatorial; 
considered with attention the suggestions of the 
Crown, and was, besides, genuinely impressed by 
the Prince's ability and knowledge.^ Friction, no 
doubt, there stiU occasionally was, for, while the 
Queen and the Prince devoted themselves to for- 
eign politics as much as ever, their views, when 
the war was over, became once more antagonistic 
to those of the Prime Minister. This was espe- 
cially the case with regard to Italy. Albert, theo- 
retically the friend of constitutional government, 
distrusted Cavour, was horrified by Garibaldi, and 
dreaded the danger of England being drawn into 
war with Austria. Palmerston, on the other hand, 
was eager for Italian independence; but he was 
no longer at the Foreign Office, and the brunt of 
the royal displeasure had now to be borne by Lord 
John Russell. In a few years the situation had 
curiously altered. It was Lord John who now 
filled the subordinate and the ungrateful role; but 
the Foreign Secretary, in his struggle with the 
Crown, was supported, instead of opposed, by the 
Prime Minister. Nevertheless the struggle was 
fierce, and the policy, by which the vigorous sym- 
pathy of England became one of the decisive fac- 

1 Martin, II, 429. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 277 

tors in the final achievement of Italian unity, was 
only carried through in face of the violent opposi- 
tion of the Court. ^ 

Tow^ards the other European storm-centre, also, 
the Prince's attitude continued to be very different 
to that of Palmerston. Albert's great wish was 
for a united Germany under the leadership of a 
constitutional and virtuous Prussia; Palmerston 
did not think that there was much to be said for 
the scheme, but he took no particular interest in 
German politics, and was ready enough to agree 
to a proposal which was warmly supported by 
both the Prince and the Queen — that the royal 
Houses of England and Prussia should be united 
by the marriage of the Princess Royal with the 
Prussian Crown Prince. Accordingly, when the 
Princess was not yet fifteen, the Prince, a young 
man of twenty-four, came over on a visit to Bal- 
moral, and the betrothal took place.^ Two years 
later, in 1857, the marriage was celebrated. At 
the last moment, however, it seemed that there 
might be a hitch. It was pointed out in Prussia 
that it was customary for Princes of the blood 
royal to be married in Berlin, and it was suggested 
that there was no reason why the present case 

1 Letters, III, especially July-December, 1859; Martin, IV, 488-91; 
V, 189. 

2 Leaves, 107. 



278 QUEEN VICTORIA 

should be treated as an exception. When this 
reached the ears of Victoria, she was speechless 
with indignation. In a note, emphatic even for 
Her Majesty, she instructed the Foreign Secretary 
to tell the Prussian Ambassador " not to entertain 
the possibility of such a question. . . . The Queen 
never could consent to it, both for public and for 
private reasons, and the assumption of its being 
too much for a Prince Royal of Prussia to come 
over to marry the Princess Royal of Great Britain 
in England is too absurd to say the least. . . . 
Whatever may be the usual practice of Prussian 
princes, it is not every day that one marries the 
eldest daughter of the Queen of England. The 
question must therefore be considered as settled 
and closed." ^ It was, and the wedding took place 
in St. James's Chapel. There were great festivi- 
ties — illuminations, state concerts, immense crowds, 
and general rejoicings. At Windsor a magnifi- 
cent banquet was given to the bride and bride- 
groom in the Waterloo room, at which, Victoria 
noted in her diary, " everybody was most friendly 
and kind about Vicky and full of the universal 
enthusiasm, of which the Duke of Buccieuch gave 
us most pleasing instances, he having been in the 
very thick of the crowd and among the lowest of 

1 Letters, III, 263. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 279 

the low." Her feelings during several days had 
been growing more and more emotional, and when 
the time came for the young couple to depart she 
very nearly broke down — but not quite. " Poor 
dear child!" she wrote afterwards. "I clasped 
her in my arms and blessed her, and knew not what 
to say. I kissed good Fritz and pressed his hand 
again and again. He was unable to speak and 
the tears were in his eyes. I embraced them both 
again at the carriage door, and Albert got into 
the carriage, an open one, with them and Bertie. 
. . . The band struck up. I wished good-bye to 
the good Perponchers. General Schreckenstein 
was much affected. I pressed his hand, and the 
good Dean's, and then went quickly upstairs." ^ 
Albert, as well as General Schreckenstein, was 
much affected. He was losing his favourite child, 
whose opening intelligence had already begun to 
display a marked resemblance to his own — an 
adoring pupil, who, in a few years, might have be- 
come an almost adequate companion. An ironic 
fate had determined that the daughter who was 
taken from him should be sympathetic, clever, in- 
terested in the arts and sciences, and endowed with 
a strong taste for memoranda, while not a single 
one of these qualities could be discovered in the 

1 Martin, IV, 160-9. 



280 QUEEN VICTORIA 

son who remained. For certainly the Prince of 
Wales did not take after his father. Victoria's 
prayer had been unanswered, and with each suc- 
ceeding year it became more obvious that Bertie 
was a true scion of the House of Brunswick. But 
these evidences of innate characteristics only served 
to redouble the efforts of his parents ; it still might 
not be too late to incline the young branch, by 
ceaseless pressure and careful fastenings, to grow 
in the proper direction. Everything was tried. 
The boy was sent on a continental tour with a 
picked body of tutors, but the results were unsatis- 
factory. At his father's request he kept a diary 
which, on his return, was inspected by the Prince. 
It was found to be distressingly meagre: what a 
multitude of highly interesting reflections might 
have been arranged under the heading: " The First 
Prince of Wales visiting the Pope ! " But there 
was not a single one. " Le jeune prince plaisit a 
tout le monde," old Metternich reported to Guizot, 
" mais avait Fair embarrasse et tres triste." On 
his seventeenth birthday a memorandum was 
drawn up over the names of the Queen and the 
Prince informing their eldest son that he was 
now entering upon the period of manhood, and 
directing him henceforward to perform the duties 
of a Christian gentleman. "Life is composed of 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 281 

duties," said the memorandum, " and in the due, 
punctual and cheerful performance of them the 
true Christian, true soldier, and true gentleman is 
recognised. ... A new sphere of life will open 
for you in which you will have to be taught what 
to do and what not to do, a subject requiring 
study more important than any in which you have 
hitherto been engaged." On receipt of the memo- 
randum Bertie burst into tears. At the same time 
another memorandum was drawn up, headed " con- 
fidential: for the guidance of the gentlemen ap- 
pointed to attend on the Prince of Wales." This 
long and elaborate document laid down '.' certain 
principles " by which the " conduct and demean- 
our " of the gentlemen were to be regulated " and 
which it is thought may conduce to the benefit of 
the Prince of Wales." " The qualities which dis- 
tinguish a gentleman in society," continued this 
remarkable paper, " are : — 

(1) His appearance, his deportment and dress. 

(2) The character of his relations with, and 
treatment of, others. 

(3) His desire and power to acquit himself 
creditably in conversation or whatever is the occu- 
pation of the society with which he mixes." 

A minute and detailed analysis of these sub- 
headings followed, filling several pages, and the 



282 QUEEN VICTORIA 

memorandum ended with a final exhortation to 
the gentlemen: " If they will duly appreciate the 
responsibility of their position, and taking the 
points above laid down as the outline, will exer- 
cise their own good sense in acting upon all occa- 
sions upon these principles, thinking no point of 
detail too minute to be important, but maintaining 
one steady consistent line of conduct they may 
render essential service to the young Prince and 
justify the flattering selection made by the royal 
parents." A year later the young Prince was sent 
to Oxford, where the greatest care was taken that 
he should not mix with the undergraduates. Yes, 
everything had been tried — everything . . . with 
one single exception. The experiment had never 
been made of letting Bertie enjoy himself. But 
why should it have been? " Life is composed of 
duties." What possible place could there be for 
enj oyment in the existence of a Prince of Wales ? ^ 
The same year which deprived Albert of the 
Princess Koyal brought him another and a still 
more serious loss. The Baron had paid his last 
visit to England. For twenty years, as he himself 
said in a letter to the King of the Belgians, he had 
performed " the laborious and exhausting office of 

1 D.N.B., Second Supplement, 551; Quarterly Review, ccxiii, 
9-20, 24; GreviUe, VIII, 217. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 283 

a paternal friend and trusted adviser " to the 
Prince and the Queen. He was seventy; he was 
tired, physically and mentally; it was time to go. 
He returned to his home in Coburg, exchanging, 
once for all, the momentous secrecies of European 
statecraft for the tittle-tattle of a provincial cap- 
ital and the gossip of family life. In his stiff chair 
by the fire he nodded now over old stories — not of 
emperors and generals — but of neighbours and 
relatives and the domestic adventures of long ago 
— the burning of his father's library — and the goat 
that ran upstairs to his sister's room and ran twice 
round the table and then ran down again. Dys- 
pepsia and depression still attacked him; but, look- 
ing back over his life, he was not dissatisfied. His 
conscience was clear. " I have worked as long as 
I had strength to work," he said, " and for a pur- 
pose no one can impugn. The consciousness of 
this is my reward — the only one which I desired 
to earn." ^ 

Apparently, indeed, his " purpose " had been 
accomplished. By his wisdom, his patience, and 
his example he had brought about, in the fullness 
of time, the miraculous metamorphosis of which 
he had dreamed. The Prince was his creation. 
An indefatigable toiler, presiding, for the highest 

1 Stockmar, 4, 44. 



284 QUEEN VICTORIA 

ends, over a great nation — that was his achieve- 
ment; and he looked upon his work and it was 
good. But had the Baron no misgivings? Did 
he never wonder whether, perhaps, he might have 
accomplished not too little but too much? How 
subtle and how dangerous are the snares whicli 
fate lays for the wariest of men ! Albert, certainly, 
seemed to be everything that Stockmar could have 
wished — ^virtuous, industrious, persevering, intelli- 
gent. And yet — why was it? — all was not well 
with him. He was sick at heart. 

.For in spite of everything he had never reached 
to happiness. His work, for which at last he came 
to crave with an almost morbid appetite, was a 
solace and not a cure; the dragon of his dissatis- 
faction devoured with dark relish that ever-grow- 
ing tribute of laborious days and nights; but it 
was hungry still. The causes of his melancholy 
were hidden, mysterious, unanalysable perhaps — 
too deeply rooted in the innermost recesses of his 
temperament for the eye of reason to apprehend. 
There were contradictions in his nature, which, to 
some of those who knew him best, made him seem 
an inexplicable enigma: he was severe and gentle; 
he was modest and scornful; he longed for affec- 
tion and he was cold.^ He was lonely, not merely 

1 Ernest, I, 140-1. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 285 

with the loneliness of exile but with the loneliness 
of conscious and unrecognised superiority. He 
had the pride, at once resigned and overweening, 
of a doctrinaire. And yet to say that he was sim- 
ply a doctrinaire would be a false description; for 
the pure doctrinaire rejoices always in an internal 
contentment, and Albert was very far from doing 
that. There was something that he wanted and 
that he could never get. What was it? Some ab- 
solute, some ineffable sympathy? Some extraordi- 
nary, some sublime success? Possibly, it was a 
mixture of both. To dominate and to be under- 
stood! To conquer, by the same triumphant influ- 
ence, the submission and the appreciation of men — 
that would be worth while indeed! But, to such 
imaginations, he saw too clearly how faint were 
the responses of his actual environment. Who 
was there who appreciated him, really and truly? 
Who could appreciate him in England? And, if 
the gentle virtue of an inward excellence availed 
so little, could he expect more from the hard ways 
of skill and force? The terrible land of his exile 
loomed before him a frigid, an impregnable mass. 
Doubtless he had made some slight impression: 
it was true that he had gained the respect of his 
fellow workers, that his probity, his industry, his 
exactitude, had been recognised, that he was a 



286 QUEEN VICTORIA 

highly influential, an extremely important man. 
But how far, how very far, was all this from the 
goal of his ambitions! How feeble and futile his 
efforts seemed against the enormous coagulation 
of dullness, of folly, of slackness, of ignorance, of 
confusion that confronted him! He might have 
the strength or the ingenuity to make some small 
change for the better here or there — to rearrange 
some detail, to abolish some anomaly, to insist 
upon some obvious reform ; but the heart of the 
appalling organism remained untouched. Eng- 
land lumbered on, impervious and self-satisfied, in 
her old intolerable course. He threw himself 
across the path of the monster with rigid purpose 
and set teeth, but he was brushed aside. Yes ! even 
Palmerston was still unconquered — was still there 
to afflict him with his jauntiness, his muddle-head- 
edness, his utter lack of principle. It was too 
much. Neither nature nor the Baron had given 
him a sanguine spirit; the seeds of pessimism, 
once lodged within him, flourished in a propitious 
soil. He 

" questioned things, and did not find 
One that would answer to his mind; 
And all the world appeared unkind." 

He believed that he was a failure and he began 
to despair. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 287 

Yet Stockmar had told him that he must " never 
relax," and he never would. He would go on, 
working to the utmost and striving for the highest, 
to the bitter end. His industry grew almost 
maniacal. Earlier and earlier was the green lamp 
lighted; more vast grew the correspondence; more 
searching the examination of the newspapers; the 
interminable memoranda more punctilious, ana- 
lytical, and precise. His very recreations became 
duties. He enjoyed himself by time-table, went 
deer-stalking with meticulous gusto, and made 
puns at lunch — it was the right thing to do. The 
mechanism worked with astonishing efficiency, but 
it never rested and it was never oiled. In dry 
exactitude the innumerable cog-wheels perpetually 
revolved. No, whatever happened, the Prince 
would not relax; he had absorbed the doctrines of 
Stockmar too thoroughly. He knew what was 
right, and, at all costs, he would pursue it. That 
was certain. But alas! in this our life what are 
the certainties? "In nothing be over-zealous!" 
says an old Greek. " The due measure in all the 
works of man is best. For often one who zeal- 
ously pushes towards some excellence, though he 
be pursuing a gain, is really being led utterly 
astray by the will of some Power, which makes 
those things that are evil seem to him good, and 



288 QUEEN VICTORIA 

those things seem to him evil that are for his 
advantage." ^ Surely, both the Prince and the 
Baron might have learnt something from the frigid 
wisdom of Theognis. 

Victoria noticed that her husband sometimes 
seemed to be depressed and overworked. She tried 
to cheer him up. Realising uneasily that he was 
still regarded as a foreigner, she hoped that by 
conferring upon him the title of Prince Consort 
(1857) she would improve his position in the coun- 
try. " The Queen has a right to claim that her 
husband should be an Englishman," she wrote.^ 
But unfortunately, in spite of the Royal Letters 
Patent, Albert remained as foreign as before; and 
as the years passed his dejection deepened. She 
worked with him, she watched over him, she walked 
with him through the woods at Osborne, while he 
whistled to the nightingales, as he had whistled 
once at Rosenau so long ago.^ When his birthday 
came round, she took the greatest pains to choose 
him presents that he would really like. In 1858, 
when he was thirty-nine, she gave him " a picture 
of Beatrice, life-size, in oil, by Horsley, a com- 
plete collection of photographic views of Gotha 
and the country round, which I had taken by Bed- 
ford, and a paper-weight of Balmoral granite and 

1 Theognis, 401 ff. 2 Letters, III, 194. a Grey, 195n. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 289 

deers' teeth, designed by Vicky." ^ Albert was of 
course delighted, and his merriment at the family 
gathering was more pronounced than ever: and 
yet . . . what was there that was wrong? 

No doubt it was his health. He was wearing 
himself out in the service of the country; and cer- 
tainly his constitution, as Stockmar had perceived 
from the first, was ill-adapted to meet a serious 
strain. He was easily upset; he constantly suf- 
fered from minor ailments. His appearance in 
itself was enough to indicate the infirmity of his 
physical powers. The handsome youth of twenty 
years since with the flashing eyes and the soft 
complexion had grown into a sallow, tired-looking 
man, whose body, in its stoop and its loose fleshi- 
ness, betrayed the sedentary labourer, and whose 
head was quite bald on the top. Unkind critics, 
who had once compared Albert to an operatic 
tenor, might have remarked that there was some- 
thing of the butler about him now. Beside Vic- 
toria, he presented a painful contrast. She, too, 
was stout, but it was with the plumpness of a vig- 
orous matron; and an eager vitality was every- 
where visible — in her energetic bearing, her pro- 
truding, enquiring glances, her small, fat, capable, 
and commanding hands. If only, by some sympa- 

1 Martin, IV, 298. 



290 QUEEN VICTORIA 

thetic magic, she could have conveyed into that 
portly, flabby figure, that desiccated and discour- 
aged brain, a measure of the stamina and the self- 
assurance which were so pre-eminently hers! 

But suddenly she was reminded that there were 
other perils besides those of ill-health. During a 
visit to Coburg in 1860, the Prince was very nearly 
killed in a carriage accident. He escaped with a 
few cuts and bruises; but Victoria's alarm was 
extreme, though she concealed it. " It is when the 
Queen feels most deeply," she wrote afterwards, 
" that she always appears calmest, and she could 
not and dared not allow herself to speak of what 
might have been, or even to admit to herself (and 
she cannot and dare not now) the entire danger, 
for her head would turn! " Her agitation, in fact, 
was only surpassed by her thankfulness to God. 
She felt, she said, that she could not rest " without 
doing something to mark permanently her feel- 
ings," and she decided that she would endow a 
charity in Coburg. " £1,000, or even £2,000, 
given either at once, or in instalments yearly, 
would not, in the Queen's opinion, be too much." 
Eventually, the smaller sum having been fixed 
upon, it was invested in a trust, called the " Vic- 
toria-Stift," in the name of the Burgomaster and 
chief clergyman of Coburg, who were directed to 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 291 

distribute the interest yearly among a certain num- 
ber of young men and women of exemplary char- 
acter belonging to the humbler ranks of life.^ 

Shortly afterwards the Queen underwent, for 
the first time in her life, the actual experience of 
close personal loss. Early in 1861 the Duchess of 
Kent was taken seriously ill, and in March she 
died. The event overwhelmed Victoria. With a 
morbid intensity, she filled her diary for pages 
with minute descriptions of her mother's last hours, 
her dissolution, and her corpse, interspersed with 
vehement apostrophes, and the agitated outpour- 
ings of emotional reflection. In the grief of the 
present the disagreements of the past were totally 
forgotten. It was the horror and the mystery of 
Death — ^Death, present and actual — that seized 
upon the imagination of the Queen. Her whole 
being, so instinct with vitality, recoiled in agony 
from the grim spectacle of the triumph of that 
awful power. Her own mother, with whom she 
had lived so closely and so long that she had be- 
come a part almost of her existence, had fallen into 
nothingness before her very eyes! She tried to 
forget, but she could not. Her lamentations con- 
tinued with a strange abundance, a strange per- 
sistency. It was almost as if, by some mysterious 

1 Martin, V, 202-4, 217-9. 



292 QUEENVICTORIA 

and unconscious precognition, she realised that 
for her, in an especial manner, that grisly Majesty 
had a dreadful dart in store. 

For indeed, before the year was out, a far more 
terrible blow was to fall upon her. Albert, who 
had for long been suffering from sleeplessness, 
went, on a cold and drenching day towards the end 
of November, to inspect the buildings for the new 
Military Academy at Sandhurst. On his return, 
it was clear that the fatigue and exposure to which 
he had been subjected had seriously affected his 
health. He was attacked by rheumatism, his sleep- 
lessness continued, and he complained that he felt 
thoroughly unwell. Three days later a painful 
duty obliged him to visit Cambridge. The Prince 
of Wales, who had been placed at that University 
in the previous year, was behaving in such a man- 
ner that a parental visit and a parental admonition 
had become necessary. The disappointed father, 
suffering in mind and body, carried through his 
task; but, on his return journey to Windsor, he 
caught a fatal chill.* During the next week he 
gradually grew weaker and more miserable. Yet, 
depressed and enfeebled as he was, he continued 
to work. It so happened that at that very mo- 
ment a grave diplomatic crisis had arisen. Civil 

1 D.N.B., Second Supplement, 557. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 293 

war had broken out in America, and it seemed as 
if England, owing to a violent quarrel with the 
Northern States, was upon the point of being 
drawn into the conflict. A severe despatch by 
Lord John Russell was submitted to the Queen; 
and the Prince perceived that, if it was sent off 
unaltered, war would be the almost inevitable con- 
sequence. At seven o'clock on the morning of 
December 1, he rose from his bed, and with a 
quavering hand wi'ote a series of suggestions for 
the alteration of the draft, by which its language 
might be softened, and a way left open for a 
peaceful solution of the question. These changes 
were accepted by the Government, and war was 
averted. It was the Prince's last memorandum.^ 
He had always declared that he viewed the pros- 
pect of death with equanimity. " I do not cling 
to life," he had once said to Victoria. " You do; 
but I set no store by it." And then he had added : 
" I am sure, if I had a severe illness, I should give 
up at once, I should not struggle for life. I have 
no tenacity of life." ^ He had judged correctly. 
Before he had been ill many days, he told a friend 
that he was convinced he would not recover.^ He 
sank and sank. Nevertheless, if his case had been 

1 Martin, V, 416-27. 2 Martin, V, 415. 

3 Bloomfield, II, 155. 



294 QUEEN VICTORIA 

properly understood and skilfully treated from the 
first, he might conceivably have been saved; but 
the doctors failed to diagnose his symptoms; and 
it is noteworthy that his principal physician was 
Sir James Clark. When it was suggested that 
other advice should be taken, Sir James pooh- 
poohed the idea : " there was no cause for alarm,'* 
he said. But the strange illness grew worse. At 
last, after a letter of fierce remonstrance from 
Palmerston, Dr. Watson was sent for; and Dr. 
Watson saw at once that he had come too late. 
The Prince was in the grip of typhoid fever. " I 
think that everything so far is satisfactory," said 
Sir James Clark.^ 

The restlessness and the acute suffering of the 
earlier days gave place to a settled torpor and an 
ever-deepening gloom. Once the failing patient 
asked for music — "a fine chorale at a distance"; 
and a piano having been placed in the adjoining 
room. Princess Alice played on it some of 
Luther's hymns, after which the Prince repeated 
" The Rock of Ages." Sometimes his mind wan- 
dered; sometimes the distant past came rushing 

1 Martin, V, 427-35; Clarendon, II, 253-4: "One cannot speak 
with certainty; but it is horrible to think that such a life may have 
been sacrificed to Sir J. Clark's selfish jealousy of every member 
of his profession." — The Earl of Clarendon to the Duchess of 
Manchester, December 17, 1861. 



LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT 295 

upon hini; he heard the birds in the early morn- 
ing, and was at Rosenau again, a boy. Or Vic- 
toria would come and read to him " Peveril of 
the Peak," and he showed that he could follow 
the story, and then she would bend over him, and 
he would murmur " liebes Frauchen " and " gutes 
Weibchen," stroking her cheek. Her distress and 
her agitation were great, but she was not seriously 
frightened. Buoyed up by her own abundant 
energies, she would not believe that Albert's might 
prove unequal to the strain. She refused to face 
such a hideous possibility. She declmed to see Dr. 
Watson. Why should she? Had not Sir James 
Clark assured her that all would be well? Only 
two days before the end, which was seei. now to 
be almost inevitable by everyone about her, she 
wrote, full of apparent confidence, to the King of 
the Belgians: " I do not sit up with him at night," 
she said, " as I could be of no use; and there is 
nothing to cause alarm." ^ The Princess Alice 
tried to tell her the truth, but her hopefulness 
would not be daunted. On the morning of De- 
cember 14, Albert, just as she had expected, 
seemed to be better; perhaps the crisis was 
over. But in the course of the day there was 
a serious relapse. Then at last she allowed her- 

1 Letters, III, 472-3. 



296 QUEEN VICTORIA 

self to see that she was standing on the edge of an 
appalling gulf. The whole family was summoned, 
and, one after another, the children took a silent 
farewell of their father. " It was a terrible mo- 
ment," Victoria wrote in her diary, " but, thank 
God! I was able to command myself, and to be 
perfectly calm, and remained sitting by his side." 
He murmured something, but she could not hear 
what it was; she thought he was speaking in 
French. Then all at once he began to arrange his 
hair, " just as he used to do when well and he was 
dressing." " Es ist kleines Frauchen," she whis- 
pered to him; and he seemed to understand. For 
a moment, towards the evening, she went into 
another room, but was immediately called back; 
she saw at a glance that a ghastly change had 
taken place. As she knelt by the bed, he breathed 
deeply, breathed gently, breathed at last no more. 
His features became perfectly rigid; she shrieked 
one long wild shriek that rang through the terror- 
stricken castle — and understood that she had lost 
him for ever.* 

1 Martin, V, 435-42; Hare, II, 286-8; Spinster Lady, 176-7. 



CHAPTER VII 

WIDOWHOOD 

I 
The death of the Prince Consort was the central 
turning-point in the history of Queen Victoria. 
She herself felt that her true life had ceased with 
her husband's, and that the remainder of her days 
upon earth was of a twihght nature — an epilogue 
to a drama that was done. Nor is it possible that 
her biographer should escape a similar impression. 
For him, too, there is a darkness over the latter 
half of that long career. The first forty-two 
years of the Queen's life are illuminated by a 
great and varied quantity of authentic informa- 
tion. With Albert's death a veil descends. Only 
occasionally, at fitful and disconnected intervals, 
does it lift for a moment or two; a few main out- 
lines, a few remarkable details may be discerned; 
the rest is all conjecture and ambiguity. Thus, 
though the Queen survived her great bereavement 
for almost as many years as she had lived before 
it, the chronicle of those years can bear no propor- 
tion to the tale of her earlier life. We must be 

297 



298 QUEEN VICTORIA 

content in our ignorance with a brief and sum- 
mary relation. 

The sudden removal of the Prince was not 
merely a matter of overwhelming personal concern 
to Victoria; it was an event of national, of Euro- 
pean importance. He was only forty-two, and in 
the ordinary course of nature he might have been 
expected to live at least thirty years longer. Had 
he done so it can hardly be doubted that the whole 
development of the English polity would have 
been changed. Already at the time of his death 
he filled a unique place in English public life; 
already among the inner circle of politicians he 
was accepted as a necessary and useful part of the 
mechanism of the State. Lord Clarendon, for in- 
stance, spoke of his death as " a national calamity 
of far greater importance than the public dream 
of," and lamented the loss of his " sagacity and 
foresight," which, he declared, would have been 
" more than ever valuable " in the event of an 
American war.^ And, as time went on, the Prince's 
influence must have enormously increased. For, 
in addition to his intellectual and moral qualities, 
he enjoyed, by virtue of his position, one supreme 
advantage which every other holder of high office 
in the country was without: he was permanent. 

1 Clarendon, II, 251. 




QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1863. 



WIDOWHOOD 299 

Politicians came and went, but the Prince was 
perpetually installed at the centre of affairs. Who 
can doubt that, towards the end of the century, 
srch a man, grown grey in the service of the na- 
tion, virtuous, intelligent, and with the unexam- 
pled experience of a whole life-time of govern- 
ment, would have acquired an extraordinary pres- 
tige? If, in his youth, he had been able to pit the 
Crown against the mighty Palmerston and to come 
off with equal honours from the contest, of what 
might he not have been capable in his old age? 
What Minister, however able, however popular, 
could have withstood the wisdom, the irreproach- 
ability, the vast prescriptive authority, of the ven- 
erable Prince? It is easy to imagine how, under 
such a ruler, an attempt might have been made to 
convert England into a State as exactly organised, 
as elaborately trained, as efficiently equipped, and 
as autocratically controlled, as Prussia herself. 
Then perhaps, eventually, under some powerful 
leader — a Gladstone or a Bright — the democratic 
forces in the country might have rallied together, 
and a struggle might have followed in which the 
Monarchy would have been shaken to its founda- 
tions. Or, on the other hand, Disraeli's hypothet- 
ical prophecy might have come true. " With 
Prince Albert," he said, " we have buried our 



300 QUEEN VICTORIA 

sovereign. This German Prince has governed 
England for twenty-one years with a wisdom and 
energy such as none of our kings have ever shown. 
... If he had outKved some of our " old stagers " 
he would have given us the blessings of absolute 
government." ^ 

The English Constitution — that indescribable 
entity — is a living thing, growing with the growth 
of men, and assuming ever-varying forms in ac- 
cordance with the subtle and complex laws of 
human character. It is the child of wisdom and 
chance. The wise men of 1688 moulded it into the 
shape we know; but the chance that George I 
could not speak English gave it one of its essen- 
tial peculiarities — the system of a Cabinet inde- 
pendent of the Crown and subordinate to the 
Prime Minister. The wisdom of Lord Grey saved 
it from petrifaction and destruction, and set it 
upon the path of Democracy. Then chance inter- 
vened once more; a female sovereign happened to 
marry an able and pertinacious man ; and it seemed 
likely that an element which had been quiescent 
within it for years — ^the element of irresponsible 
administrative power — was about to become its 
predominant characteristic and to change com- 
pletely the direction of its growth. But what 

iVitzthum, II, 161. 



WIDOWHOOD 301 

chance gave chance took away. The Consort per- 
ished in his prime; and the English Constitution, 
dropping the dead limb with hardly a tremor, con- 
tinued its mysterious life as if he had never been. 
One human being, and one alone, felt the full 
force of what had happened. The Baron, by his 
fireside at Coburg, suddenly saw the tremendous 
fabric of his creation crash down into sheer and 
irremediable ruin. Albert was gone, and he had 
lived in vain. Even his blackest hypochondria had 
never envisioned quite so miserable a catastrophe. 
Victoria wrote to him, visited him, tried to console 
him by declaring with passionate conviction that 
she would carry on her husband's work. He smiled 
a sad smile and looked into the fire. Then he 
murmured that he was going where Albert was — 
that he would not be long.^ He shrank into him- 
self. His children clustered round him and did 
their best to comfort him, but it was useless: the 
Baron's heart was broken. He lingered for eigh- 
teen months, and then, with his pupil, explored 
the shadow and the dust. 

II 

With appalling suddenness Victoria had ex- 
changed the serene radiance of happiness for the 

iStockmar, 49; Ernest, IV, 71. 



302 QUEEN VICTORIA 

utter darkness of woe. In the first dreadful mo- 
ments those about her had feared that she might 
lose her reason, but the iron strain within her held 
firm, and in the intervals between the intense 
paroxysms of grief it was observed that the Queen 
was calm. She remembered, too, that Albert had 
always disapproved of exaggerated manifestations 
of feeling, and her one remaining desire was to do 
nothing but what he would have wished. Yet there 
were moments when her royal anguish would 
brook no restraints. One day she sent for the 
Duchess of Sutherland, and, leading her to the 
Prince's room, fell prostrate before his clothes in 
a flood of weeping, while she adjured the Duchess 
to tell her whether the beauty of Albert's character 
had ever been surpassed."^ At other times a feeling 
akin to indignation swept over her. " The poor 
fatherless baby of eight months," she wrote to the 
King of the Belgians, " is now the utterly heart- 
broken and crushed widow of forty-two! My life 
as a happy one is ended! The world is gone for 
me! . . . Oh! to be cut off in the prime of life — 
to see our pure, happy, quiet, domestic life, which 
alone enabled me to bear my much disliked posi- 
tion, CUT OFF at forty-two — when I had hoped 
with such instinctive certainty that God never 

1 Clarendon, II, 251, 253. 



WIDOWHOOD 303 

would part us, and would let us grow old together 
(though lie always talked of the shortness of life) 
— is too awful, too cruel! " ^ The tone of outraged 
Majesty seems to be discernible. Did she wonder 
in her heart of hearts how the Deity could have 
dared ? 

But all other emotions gave way before her 
overmastering determination to continue, abso- 
lutely unchanged, and for the rest of her life on 
earth, her reverence, her obedience, her idolatry. 
" I am anxious to repeat one thing," she told her 
uncle, " and that one is miy firm resolve, my irrev- 
ocable decision, viz., that Ms wishes — his plans — 
about everything, his views about every thing 
are to be my law! And no human power will 
make me swerve from what he decided and 
wished." She grew fierce, she grew furious, at the 
thought of any possible intrusion between her and 
her desire. Her uncle was coming to visit her, 
and it flashed upon her that he might try to inter- 
fere with her and seek to " rule the roast " as of 
old. She would give him a hint. " I am also 
determined,'" she wrote, " that no one person — 
may he be ever so good, ever so devoted among 
my servants — is to lead or guide or dictate to me. 
I know how he would disapprove it . . . Though 

1 Letters, III, 474-5. 



304 QUEEN VICTORIA 

miserably weak and utterly shattered, my spirit 
rises when I think any wish or plan of his is to 
be touched or changed, or I am to be made to do 
anything." She ended her letter in grief and affec- 
tion. She was, she said, his " ever wretched but 
devoted child, Victoria K." And then she looked 
at the date: it was the 24th of December. An 
agonising pang assailed her, and she dashed down 
a postcript. — "What a Xmas! I won't think 
of it." ^ 

At first, in the tumult of her distresses, she de- 
clared that she could not see her Ministers, and 
the Princess Alice, assisted by Sir Charles Phipps, 
the keeper of the Privy Purse, performed, to the 
best of her ability, the functions of an interme- 
diary. After a few weeks, however, the Cabinet, 
through Lord John Russell, ventured to warn the 
Queen that this could not continue.^ She realised 
that they were right: Albert would have agreed 
with them; and so she sent for the Prime Minis- 
ter. But when Lord Palmerston arrived at Os- 
borne, in the pink of health, brisk, with his 
whiskers freshly dyed, and dressed in a brown over- 
coat, light grey trousers, green gloves, and blue 
studs, he did not create a very good impression.^ 

■i- Letters, III, 476. 2 Lee, 322-3; Crawford, 368. 

3 Clarendon, II, 257. 



WIDOWHOOD 305 

Nevertheless, she had grown attached to her old 
enemy, and the thought of a political change filled 
her with agitated apprehensions. The Govern- 
ment, she knew, might fall at any moment; she 
felt she could not face such an eventuality; and 
therefore, six months after the death of the Prince, 
she took the unprecedented step of sending a pri- 
vate message to Lord Derby, the leader of the 
Opposition, to tell him that she was not in a fit 
state of mind or body to undergo the anxiety of 
a change of Government, and that if he turned 
the present Ministers out of office it would be at 
the risk of sacrificing her life — or her reason. 
When this message reached Lord Derby he was 
considerably surprised. " Dear me! " was his cyni- 
cal comment. " I didn't think she was so fond 
of them as ihat."^ 

Though the violence of her perturbations grad' 
ually subsided, her cheerfulness did not return. 
For months, for years, she continued in settled 
gloom. Her life became one of almost complete 
seclusion. Arrayed in thickest crepe, she passed 
dolefully from Windsor to Osborne, from Osborne 
to Balmoral. Rarely visiting the capital, refusing 
to take any part in the ceremonies of state, shut- 
ting herself off from the slightest intercourse with 

1 Clarendon, II, 261-2. 



306 QUEEN VICTORIA 

society, she became almost as unknown to her 
subjects as some potentate of the East. They 
might murmur, but they did not understand. What 
had she to do with empty shows and vain enjoy- 
ments? No! She was absorbed by very different 
preoccupations. She was the devoted guardian 
of a sacred trust. Her place was in the inmost 
shrine of the house of mourning — where she alone 
had the right to enter, where she could feel the 
effluence of a mysterious presence, and interpret, 
however faintly and feebly, the promptings of a 
still living soul. That, and that only was her 
glorious, her terrible duty. For terrible indeed 
it was. As the years passed her depression seemed 
to deepen and her loneliness to grow more intense. 
" I am on a dreary sad pinnacle of solitary gran- 
deur," she said.^ Again and again she felt that she 
could bear her situation no longer — that she would 
sink under the strain. And then, instantly, that 
Voice spoke: and she braced herself once more to 
perform, with minute conscientiousness, her grim 
and holy task. 

Above all else, what she had to do was to make 
her own the master-impulse of Albert's life — she 
must work, as he had worked, in the service of 
the country. That vast burden of toil which he 

1 Martin, Queen Victoria, 156. 



WIDOWHOOD 307 

had taken upon his shoulders it was now for her 
to bear. She assumed the gigantic load; and nat- 
urally she staggered under it. While he had lived, 
she had worked, indeed, with regularity and con- 
scientiousness ; but it was work made easy, made 
delicious, by his care, his forethought, his advice, 
and his infallibility. The mere sound of his voice, 
asking her to sign a paper, had thrilled her; in 
such a presence she could have laboured gladly for 
ever. But now there was a hideous change. Now 
there were no neat piles and docketings under the 
green lamp; now there were no simple explana- 
tions of difficult matters; now there was nobody 
to tell her what was right and what was wrong. 
She had her secretaries, no doubt: there were Sir 
Charles Phipps, and General Grey, and Sir 
Thomas Biddulph; and they did their best. But 
they were mere subordinates: the whole weight of 
initiative and responsibility rested upon her alone. 
For so it had to be. " I am determined'" — had 
she not declared it? — "that no one person is to 
lead or guide or dictate to me'"; anything else 
would be a betrayal of her trust. She would fol- 
low the Prince in all things. He had refused to 
delegate authority; he had examined into every 
detail with his own eyes; he had made it a rule 
never to sign a paper without having first, not 



308 QUEEN VICTORIA 

merely read it, but made notes on it too. She 
would do the same. She sat from morning till 
night surrounded by huge heaps of despatch- 
boxes, reading and writing at her desk — at her 
desk, alas! which stood alone now in the room.^ 

Within two years of Albert's death a violent 
disturbance in foreign politics put Victoria's faith- 
fulness to a crucial test. The fearful Schleswig- 
Holstein dispute, which had been smouldering for 
more than a decade, showed signs of bursting out 
into conflagration. The complexity of the ques- 
tions at issue was indescribable. " Only three peo- 
ple," said Palmerston, " have ever really under- 
stood the Schleswig-Holstein business — the Prince 
Consort, who is dead — a German professor, who 
has gone mad — and I, who have forgotten all 
about it." ^ But, though the Prince might be dead, 
had he not left a vicegerent behind him? Victoria 
threw herself into the seething embroilment with 
the vigour of inspiration. She devoted hours daily 
to the study of the affair in all its windings; but 
she had a clue through the labyrinth : whenever the 
question had been discussed, Albert, she recollected 
it perfectly, had always taken the side of Prussia. 
Her course was clear. She became an ardent cham- 

1 Clarendon, II, 261; Lee, 327; Martin, Queen Victoria, 30. 

2 Grant Robertson, Bismarck, 156. 



WIDOWHOOD 309 

pion of the Prussian point of view. It was a leg- 
acy from the Prince, she said/ She did not reahse 
that the Prussia of the Prince's day was dead, and 
that a new Prussia, the Prussia of Bismarck, was 
born. Perhaps Palmerston, with his queer pre- 
science, instinctively apprehended the new danger; 
at any rate, he and Lord John were agreed upon 
the necessity of supporting Denmark against Prus- 
sia's claims. But opinion was sharply divided, not 
only in the country but in the Cabinet. For eigh- 
teen months the controversy raged; while the 
Queen, with persistent vehemence, opposed the 
Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. When 
at last the final crisis arose — when it seemed pos- 
sible that England would join forces with Den- 
mark in a war against Prussia — Victoria's agita- 
tion grew febrile in its intensity. Towards her 
German relatives she preserved a discreet appear- 
ance of impartiality; but she poured out upon her 
Ministers a flood of appeals, protests, and expos- 
tulations. She invoked the sacred cause of Peace. 

The only chance of preserving peace for Eu- 
rope," she wrote, "is by not assisting Denmark, 

^ho has brought this entirely upon herself. ... 

4t iMorley, II, 102; Ernest, IV, 133: "I know that our dear angel 
Albert, always regarded a strong Prussia as a necessity, for which, 
therefore, it is a sacred duty for me to work." — Queen Victoria 
to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, August 29, 1863. 



310 QUEEN VICTORIA 

The Queen suffers much, and her nerves are more 
and more totally shattered. . . . But though all 
this anxiety is wearing her out, it will not shake 
her firm purpose of resisting any attempt to in- 
volve this country in a mad and useless combat." 
She was, she declared, " prepared to make a stand," 
even if the resignation of the Foreign Secretary 
should follow.^ " The Queen," she told Lord 
Granville, " is completely exhausted by the anx- 
iety and suspense, and misses her beloved hus- 
band's help, advice, support, and love in an over- 
whelming manner." She was so worn out by her 
efforts for peace that she could " hardly hold up 
her head or hold her pen." " England did not go 
to war, and Denmark was left to her fate ; but how 
far the attitude of the Queen contributed to this 
result it is impossible, with our present knowledge, 
to say. On the whole, however, it seems probable 
that the determining factor in the situation was 
the powerful peace party in the Cabinet rather 
than the imperious and pathetic pressure of Vic- 
toria. 

It is, at any rate, certain that the Queen's 
enthusiasm for the sacred cause of peace was short- 
lived. Within a few months her mind had com- 
pletely altered. Her eyes were opened to the true 

1 Fitzmaurice, I, 459, 460. 2 Ibid., 1, 472-3. 



WIDOWHOOD 311 

nature of Prussia, whose designs upon Austria 
were about to culminate in the Seven Weeks' War. 
Veering precipitately from one extreme to the 
other, she now urged her Ministers to interfere by 
force of arms in support of Austria. But she 
urged in vain.^ 

Her political activity, no more than her social 
seclusion, was approved by the public. As the 
years passed, and the royal mourning remained as 
unrelieved as ever, the animadversions grew more 
general and more severe. It was observed that 
the Queen's protracted privacy not only cast a 
gloom over high society, not only deprived the 
populace of its pageantry, but also exercised a 
highly deleterious effect upon the dressmaking, 
millinery, and hosiery trades. This latter consid- 
eration carried great weight. At last, early in 
1864, the rumour spread that Her Majesty was 
about to go out of mourning, and there was much 
rejoicing in the newspapers; but unfortunately it 
turned out that the rumour was quite without 
foundation. Victoria, with her own hand, wrote a 
letter to The Times to say so. " This idea," she 
declared, " cannot be too explicitly contradicted. 
" The Queen," the letter continued, " heartily ap- 
preciates the desire of her subjects to see her, and 

1 Clarendon, II, 310-1. 



312 QUEEN VICTORIA 

whatever she can do to gratify them in this loyal 
and affectionate wish, she will do. . . . But there 
are other and higher duties than those of mere 
representation which are now thrown upon the 
Queen, alone and unassisted — duties which she 
cannot neglect without injury to the public serv- 
ice, which weigh unceasingly upon her, overwhelm- 
ing her with work and anxiety."^ The justifica- 
tion might have been considered more cogent had 
it not been known that those " other and higher 
duties " emphasised by the Queen consisted for the 
most part of an attempt to counteract the foreign 
policy of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Rus- 
sell. A large section — perhaps a majority — of the 
nation were violent partisans of Denmark in the 
Schleswig-Holstein quarrel; and Victoria's sup- 
port of Prussia was widely denounced. A wave of 
unpopularity, which reminded old observers of the 
period preceding the Queen's marriage more than 
twenty-five years before, was beginning to rise. 
The press was rude; Lord Ellenborough attacked 
the Queen in the House of Lords; there were 
curious whispers in high quarters that she had had 
thoughts of abdicating — whispers followed by re- 
grets that she had not done so." Victoria, out- 

1 The Times, April 6, 1864; Clarendon, II, 290. 

2 Clarendon, II, 292-3. 



WIDOWHOOD 313 

raged and injured, felt that she was misunder- 
stood. She was profoundly unhappy. After Lord 
Ellenborough's speech, General Grey declared 
that he " had never seen the Queen so completely 
upset." " Oh, how fearful it is," she herself wrote 
to Lord Granville, " to be suspected — uncheered — 
unguided and unadvised — and how alone the poor 
Queen feels! " ^ Nevertheless, suffer as she might, 
she was as resolute as ever ; she would not move by 
a hair's breadth from the course that a supreme 
obligation marked out for her; she would be faith- 
ful to the end. 

And so, when Schleswig-Holstein was forgot- 
ten, and even the image of the Prince had begun 
to grow dim in the fickle memories of men, the 
solitary watcher remained immutably concentrated 
at her peculiar task. The world's hostility, steadily 
increasing, was confronted and outfaced by the im- 
penetrable weeds of Victoria. Would the world 
never understand? It was not mere sorrow that 
kept her so strangely sequestered; it was devotion, 
it was self-immolation; it was the laborious legacy 
of love. Unceasingly the pen moved over the 
black-edged paper. The flesh might be weak, but 
that vast burden must be borne. And fortunately, 
if the world would not understand, there were 



h 



1 Fitzmaurice, I, 466, 469. 



314 QUEEN VICTORIA 

faithful friends who did. There was Lord Gran- 
ville, and there was kind Mr. Theodore Martin. 
Perhaps Mr. Martin, who was so clever, would 
find means to make people realise the facts. She 
would send him a letter, pointing out her arduous 
labours and the difficulties under which she strug- 
gled, and then he might write an article for one 
of the magazines. It is not, she told him in 1863, 
" the Queen's sorrow that keeps her secluded. 
... It is her overwhelming work and her health, 
which is greatly shaken by her sorrow, and the to- 
tally overwhelming amount of work and responsi- 
bility — work which she feels really wears her out. 
Alice Helps was wonderfully struck at the Queen's 
room; and if Mrs. Martin will look at it, she can 
tell Mr. Martin what surrounds her. From the 
hour she gets out of bed till she gets into it again 
there is work, work, work, — letter-boxes, ques- 
tions, &c., which are dreadfully exhausting — and 
if she had not comparative rest and quiet in the 
evening she would most likely not be alive. Her 
brain is constantly overtaxed." ^ It was too true. 

Ill 

To carry on Albert's work — that was her first 
duty; but there was another, second only to that, 

1 Martin, Queen Victoria, 28-9. 



WIDOWHOOD 315 

and yet nearer, if possible, to her heart — to impress 
the true nature of his genius and character upon 
the minds of her subjects. She realised that dur- 
ing his life he had not been properly appreciated; 
the full extent of his powers, the supreme quality 
of his goodness, had been necessarily concealed; 
but death had removed the need of barriers, and 
now her husband, in his magnificent entirety, 
should stand revealed to all. She set to work 
methodically. She directed Sir Arthur Helps to 
bring out a collection of the Prince's speeches and 
addresses, and the weighty tome appeared in 1862. 
Then she commanded General Grey to write an 
account of the Prince's early years — from his birth 
to his marriage; she herself laid down the design 
of the book, contributed a number of confidential 
documents, and added numerous notes; General 
Grey obeyed, and the work was completed in 1866. 
But the principal part of the story was still untold, 
and Mr. Martin was forthwith instructed to write 
a complete biography of the Prince Consort. Mr. 
Martin laboured for fourteen years. The mass 
of material with which he had to deal was ahnost 
incredible, but he was extremely industrious, and 
he enjoyed throughout the gracious assistance of 
Her Majesty. The first bulky volume was pub- 
lished in 1874; four others slowly followed; so 



316 QUEEN VICTORIA 

that it was not until 1880 that the monumental 
work was finished.^ 

Mr. Martin was rewarded by a knighthood ; and 
yet it was sadly evident that neither Sir Theodore 
nor his predecessors had achieved the purpose 
which the Queen had in view. Perhaps she was 
unfortunate in her coadjutors, but, in reality, the 
responsibility for the failure must lie with Victoria 
herself. Sir Theodore and the others faithfully 
carried out the task which she had set them — faith- 
fully put before the public the very image of 
Albert that filled her own mind. The fatal draw- 
back was that the public did not find that image 
attractive. Victoria's emotional nature, far more 
remarkable for vigour than for subtlety, rejecting 
utterly the qualifications which perspicuity, or hu- 
mour, might suggest, could be satisfied with noth- 
ing but the absolute and the categorical. When 
she disliked she did so with an unequivocal empha- 
sis which swept the object of her repugnance at 
once and finally outside the pale of consideration; 
and her feelings of affection were equally unmiti- 
gated. In the case of Albert her passion for super- 
latives reached its height. To have conceived of 
him as anything short of perfect — perfect in vir- 
tue, in wisdom, in beauty, in all the glories and 

1 Martin, Qiieen Victoria, 97-106. 



WIDOWHOOD 317 

graces of man— would have been an unthinkable 
blasphemy: perfect he was, and perfect he must be 
shown to have been. And so. Sir Arthur, Sir 
Theodore, and the General painted him. In the 
circumstances, and under such supervision, to have 
done anything else would have required talents 
considerably more distinguished than any that 
those gentlemen possessed. But that was not all. 
By a curious mischance Victoria was also able to 
press into her service another writer, the distinc- 
tion of whose talents was this time beyond a doubt. 
The Poet Laureate, adopting, either from com- 
plaisance or conviction, the tone of his sovereign, 
joined in the chorus, and endowed the royal for- 
mula with the magical resonance of verse. This 
settled the matter. Henceforward it was impos- 
sible to forget that Albert had worn the white 
flower of a blameless life. 

The result was doubly unfortunate. Victoria, 
disappointed and chagrined, bore a grudge against 
her people for their refusal, in spite of all her 
efforts, to rate her husband at his true worth. She 
did not understand that the picture of an embodied 
perfection is distasteful to the majority of man- 
kind. The cause of this is not so much an envy 
of the perfect being as a suspicion that he must be 
inhuman; and thus it happened that the public. 



318 QUEEN VICTORIA 

when it saw displayed for its admiration a figure 
resembling the sugary hero of a moral story-book 
rather than a fellow man of flesh and blood, turned 
away with a shrug, a smile, and a flippant ejacula- 
tion. But in this the public was the loser as well 
as Victoria. For in truth Albert was a far more 
interesting personage than the public dreamed. 
By a curious irony an impeccable waxwork had 
been fixed by the Queen's love in the popular 
imagination, while the creature whom it repre- 
sented — the real creature, so full of energy and 
stress and torment, so mysterious and so unhappy, 
and so fallible and so very human — had altogether 
disappeared. 

IV 

Words and books may be ambiguous memorials ; 
but who can misinterpret the visible solidity of 
bronze and stone? At Frogmore, near Windsor, 
where her mother was buried, Victoria constructed, 
at the cost of £200,000, a vast and elaborate 
mausoleum for herself and her husband.^ But 
that was a private and domestic monument, and 
the Queen desired that wherever her subjects 
might be gathered together they should be re- 
minded of the Prince. Her desire was gratified; 

1 Lee, 390. 



WIDOWHOOD 319 

all over the country — at Aberdeen, at Perth, and 
at Wolverhampton — statues of the Prince were 
erected; and the Queen, making an exception to 
her rule of retirement, unveiled them herself. Nor 
did the capital lag behind. A month after the 
Prince's death a meeting was called together at 
the Mansion House to discuss schemes for honour- 
ing his memory. Opinions, however, were divided 
upon the subject. Was a statue or an institution 
to be preferred? Meanwhile a subscription was 
opened; an influential committee was appointed, 
and the Queen was consulted as to her wishes in 
the matter. Her Majesty replied that she would 
prefer a granite obelisk, with sculptures at the 
base, to an institution. But the committee hesi- 
tated: an obelisk, to be worthy of the name, must 
clearly be a monolith; and Avhere was the quarry 
in England capable of furnishing a granite block 
of the required size? It was true that there was 
granite in Russian Finland; but the committee 
were advised that it was not adapted to resist ex- 
posure to the open air. On the whole, therefore, 
they suggested that a Memorial Hall should be 
erected, together with a statue of the Prince. Her 
Majesty assented; but then another difficulty arose. 
It was found that not more than £60,000 had been 
subscribed — a sum insufficient to defray the dou- 



320 QUEEN VICTORIA 

ble expense. The Hall, therefore, was abandoned ; 
a statue alone was to be erected; and certain emi- 
nent architects were asked to prepare designs. 
Eventually the committee had at their disposal a 
total sum of £120,000, since the public subscribed 
another £10,000, while £50,000 was voted by Par- 
liament. Some years later a joint stock company 
was formed and built, as a private speculation, the 
Albert Hall/ 

The architect whose design was selected, both 
by the committee and by the Queen, was Mr. Gil- 
bert Scott, whose industry, conscientiousness, and 
genuine piety had brought him to the head of his 
profession. His lifelong zeal for the Gothic style 
having given him a special prominence, his handi- 
work was strikingly visible, not only in a multi- 
tude of original buildings, but in most of the 
cathedrals of England. Protests, indeed, were 
occasionally raised against his renovations; but 
Mr. Scott replied with such vigour and unction in 
articles and pamphlets that not a Dean was un- 
convinced, and he was permitted to continue his 
labours without interruption. On one occasion, 
however, his devotion to Gothic had placed him in 
an unpleasant situation. The Government offices 
in Whitehall were to be rebuilt; Mr. Scott com- 

1 National Memorial. 



WIDOWHOOD 321 

peted, and his designs were successful. Naturally, 
they were in the Gothic style, combining " a cer- 
tain squareness and horizontality of outline " with 
pillar-mullions, gables, high-pitched roofs, and 
dormers; and the drawings, as Mr. Scott himself 
observed, " were, perhaps, the best ever sent in 
to a competition, or nearly so." After the usual 
difficulties and delays the work was at last to be 
put in hand, when there was a change of Govern- 
ment and Lord Palmerston became Prime Min- 
ister. Lord Palmerston at once sent for Mr. Scott. 
" Well, Mr. Scott," he said, in his jaunty way, 
" I can't have anything to do with this Gothic 
style. I must insist on your making a design in 
the Italian manner, which I am sure you can do 
very cleverly." Mr. Scott was appalled; the style 
of the Italian renaissance was not only unsightly, 
it was positively immoral, and he sternly refused 
to have anything to do with it. Thereupon Lord 
Palmerston assumed a fatherly tone. " Quite true ; 
a Gothic architect can't be expected to put up a 
Classical building; I must find someone else." 
This was intolerable, and Mr. Scott, on his return 
home, addressed to the Prime Minister a strongly- 
worded letter, in which he dwelt upon his position 
as an architect, upon his having won two Euro- 
pean competitions, his being an A.R.A., a gold 



322 QUEEN VICTORIA 

medallist of the Institute, and a lecturer on archi- 
tecture at the Royal Academy; but it was useless 
— Lord Palmerston did not even reply. It then 
occurred to Mr. Scott that, by a judicious mix- 
ture, he might, while preserving the essential char- 
acter of the Gothic, produce a design which would 
give a superficial impression of the Classical style. 
He did so, but no effect was produced upon Lord 
Palmerston. The new design, he said, was " neither 
one thing nor 'tother — a regular mongrel affair — 
and he would have nothing to do with it either." 
After that Mr. Scott found it necessary to recruit 
for two months at Scarborough, " with a course of 
quinine." He recovered his tone at last, but only 
at the cost of his convictions. For the sake of his 
family he felt that it was his unfortunate duty to 
obey the Prime Minister; and, shuddering with 
horror, he constructed the Government offices in 
a strictly Renaissance style. 

Shortly afterwards Mr. Scott found some con- 
solation in building the St. Pancras Hotel in a 
style of his own.^ 

And now another and yet more satisfactory task 
was his. " My idea in designing the Memorial," 
he wrote, " was to erect a kind of ciborium to pro- 
tect a statue of the Prince; and its special charac- 

1 Scott, 177-201, 271. 



WIDOWHOOD 323 

teristic was that the ciborium was designed in some 
degree on the principles of the ancient shrines. 
These shrines were models of imaginary buildings, 
such as had never in reality been erected ; and my 
idea was to realise one of these imaginary struc- 
tures with its precious materials, its inlaying, its 
enamels, &c. &c." ^ His idea was particularly 
appropriate since it chanced that a similar con- 
ception, though in the reverse order of magnitude, 
had occurred to the Prince himself, who had de- 
signed and executed several silver cruet-stands 
upon the same model. At the Queen's request a 
site was chosen in Kensington Gardens as near as 
possible to that of the Great Exhibition; and in 
May, 1864, the first sod was turned. The work 
was long, complicated, and difficult; a great num- 
ber of workmen were employed, besides several 
subsidiary sculptors and metal-workers under Mr. 
Scott's direction, while at every stage sketches and 
models were submitted to Her Majesty, who criti- 
cised all the details with minute care, and con- 
stantly suggested improvements. The frieze, 
which encircled the base of the monument, was in 
itself a very serious piece of work. " This," said 
Mr. Scott, " taken as a whole, is perhaps one of 
the most laborious works of sculpture ever under- 

1 Scott, 225. 



324 QUEEN VICTORIA 

taken, consisting, as it does, of a continuous range 
of figure-sculpture of the most elaborate descrip- 
tion, in the highest alto-relievo of life-size, of more 
than 200 feet in length, containing about 170 
figures, and executed in the hardest marble which 
could be procured." After three years of toil the 
memorial was still far from completion, and Mr. 
Scott thought it advisable to give a dinner to the 
workmen, " as a substantial recognition of his ap- 
preciation of their skill and energy." " Two long 
tables," we are told, " constructed of scaffold 
planks, were arranged in the workshops, and cov- 
ered with newspapers, for want of table-cloths. 
Upwards of eighty men sat down. Beef and mut- 
ton, plum pudding and cheese were supplied in 
abundance, and each man who desired it had three 
pints of beer, gingerbeer and lemonade being pro- 
vided for the teetotalers, who formed a very con- 
siderable proportion. . . . Several toasts were 
given and many of the workmen spoke, almost all 
of them commencing by " Thanking God that they 
enjoyed good health"; some alluded to the tem- 
perance that prevailed amongst them, others ob- 
served how little swearing was ever heard, whilst 
all said how pleased and proud they were to be 
engaged on so great a work." 

Gradually the edifice approached completion. 



WIDOWHOOD 325 

The one hundred and seventieth life-size figure in 
the frieze was chiselled, the granite pillars arose, 
the mosaics were inserted in the allegorical pedi- 
ments, the four colossal statues representing the 
greater Christian virtues, the four other colossal 
statues representing the greater moral virtues, 
were hoisted into their positions, the eight bronzes 
representing the greater sciences— Astronomy, 
Chemistry, Geology, Geometry, Rhetoric, Medi- 
cine, Philosophy, and Physiology— were fixed on 
their glittering pinnacles, high in air. The statue 
of Physiology was particularly admired. " On her 
left arm," the official description informs us, " she 
bears a new-born infant, as a representation of 
the development of the highest and most perfect 
of physiological forms ; her hand points towards a 
microscope, the instrument which lends its assist- 
ance for the investigation of the minuter forms 
of animal and vegetable organisms." At last the 
gilded cross crowned the dwindhng galaxies of 
superimposed angels, the four continents in white 
marble stood at the four corners of the base, and, 
seven years after its inception, in July, 1872, the 
monument was thrown open to the public. 

But four more years were to elapse before the 
central figure was ready to be placed under its 
starry canopy. It was designed by Mr. Foley, 



a26 QUEEN VICTORIA 

though in one particular the sculptor's freedom 
was restricted by Mr. Scott. " I have chosen the 
sitting posture," Mr. Scott said, " as best convey- 
ing the idea of dignity befitting a royal person- 
age." Mr. Foley ably carried out the conception 
of his principal. " In the attitude and expres- 
sion," he said, " the aim has been, with the indi- 
viduality of portraiture, to embody rank, charac- 
ter, and enlightenment, and to convey a sense of 
that responsive intelligence indicating an active, 
rather than a passive, interest in those pursuits of 
civilisation illustrated in the surrounding figures, 
groups, and relievos. . . . To identify the figure 
with one of the most memorable undertakings of 
the public life of the Prince — the International 
Exhibition of 1851 — a catalogue of the works col- 
lected in that first gathering of the industry of all 
nations, is placed in the right hand." The statue 
was of bronze gilt and weighed nearly ten tons. 
It was rightly supposed that the simple word 
" Albert," cast on the base, would be a sufficient 
means of identification.* 

"i- National Memorial; Dafforne, 43-4. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MR. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEA- 
CONSFIELD 

I 

Lord Palmerston's laugh — a queer metallic 
" Ha! ha! ha! " with reverberations in it from the 
days of Pitt and the Congress of Vienna — was 
heard no more in Piccadilly ; ^ Lord John Russell 
dwindled into senility; Lord Derby tottered from 
the stage. A new scene opened; and new pro- 
tagonists — Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli — 
struggled together in the limelight. Victoria, from 
her post of vantage, watched these developments 
with that passionate and personal interest which 
she invariably imported into politics. Her pre- 
possessions were of an unexpected kind. Mr. 
Gladstone had been the disciple of her revered 
Peel, and had won the approval of Albert; Mr. 
Disraeli had hounded Sir Robert to his fall with 
hideous virulence, and the Prince had pronounced 
that he " had not one single element of a gentle- 
man in his composition." ^ Yet she regarded Mr. 
Gladstone with a distrust and dislike which 

1 Adams, 135. 2 Clarendon, II, 342. 

327 



328 QUEEN VICTORIA 

steadily deepened, while upon his rival she lav- 
ished an abundance of confidence, esteem, and 
affection such as Lord Melbourne himself had 
hardly known. 

Her attitude towards the Tory Minister had 
suddenly changed when she found that he alone 
among public men had divined her feelings at Al- 
bert's death. Of the others she might have said 
" they pity me and not my grief "; but Mr. Dis- 
raeli had understood; and all his condolences had 
taken the form of reverential eulogies of the de- 
parted. The Queen declared that he was " the 
only person who appreciated the Prince." ^ She 
began to show him special favour; gave him and 
his wife two of the coveted seats in St. George's 
Chapel at the Prince of Wales's wedding, and in- 
vited him to stay a night at Windsor. When the 
grant for the Albert Memorial came before the 
House of Commons, Disraeli, as leader of the 
Opposition, eloquently supported the project. He 
was rewarded by a copy of the Prince's speeches, 
bound in white morocco, with an inscription in the 
royal hand. In his letter of thanks he " ventured 
to touch upon a sacred theme," and, in a strain 
which re-echoed with masterly fidelity the senti- 
ments of his correspondent, dwelt at length upon 

1 Buckle, IV, 385. 




QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1876. 
From the Portrait iy Von Angeli. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 329 

the absolute perfection of Albert. " The Prince," 
he said, " is the only person whom Mr. Disraeli 
has ever known who realised the Ideal. None with 
whom he is acquainted have ever approached it. 
There was in him an union of the manly grace and 
sublime simplicity, of chivalry with the intellectual 
splendour of the Attic Academe. The only char- 
acter in English history that would, in some re- 
spects, draw near to him is Sir Philip Sidney: the 
same high tone, the same universal accomplish- 
ments, the same blended tenderness and vigour, 
the same rare combination of romantic energy 
and classic repose." As for his own acquaintance 
with the Prince, it had been, he said, " one of the 
most satisfactory incidents of his life: full of re- 
fined and beautiful memories, and exercising, as he 
hopes, over his remaining existence, a soothing and 
exalting influence." Victoria was much affected 
by " the depth and delicacy of these touches," and 
henceforward Disraeli's place in her affections 
was assured.^ When, in 1866, the Conservatives 
came into office, Disraeli's position as Chancellor 
of the Exchequer and leader of the House neces- 
sarily brought him into a closer relation with the 
Sovereign. Two years later Lord Derby resigned, 
and Victoria, with intense delight and peculiar 

1 Buckle, IV, 382-95. 



330 QUEEN VICTORIA 

graciousness, welcomed Disraeli as her First Min- 
ister.^ 

But only for nine agitated months did he re- 
main in power. The Ministry, in a minority in 
the Commons, was swept out of existence by a 
general election. Yet by the end of that short 
period the ties which bound together the Queen 
and her Premier had grown far stronger than ever 
before; the relationship between them was now no 
longer merely that between a grateful mistress 
and a devoted servant: they were friends. His 
official letters, in which the personal element had 
always been perceptible, developed into racy rec- 
ords of political news and social gossip, written, 
as Lord Clarendon said, " in his best novel style." 
Victoria was delighted ; she had never, she declared, 
had such letters in her life, and had never before 
known everything.^ In return, she sent him, when 
the spring came, several bunches of flowers, picked 
by her own hands. He despatched to her a set of 
his novels, for which, she said, she was " most 
grateful, and which she values much." She her- 
self had lately published her " Leaves from the 
Journal of our Life in the Highlands," and it was 
observed that the Prime Minister, in conversing 
with Her Majesty at this period, constantly used 

1 Buckle, IV, 692. 2 Clarendon, II, 346. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 331 

the words " we authors, ma'am." ' Upon political 
questions, she was his staunch supporter. " Really 
there never was such conduct as that of the Oppo- 
sition," she wrote. And when the Government 
wa^ defeated in the House she was " really shocked 
at the way in which the House of Commons go 
on; they really bring discredit on Constitutional 
Government." ' She dreaded the prospect of a 
change; she feared that if the Liberals insisted 
upon disestabhshing the Irish Church, her Coro- 
nation Oath might stand in the way.' But a 
change there had to be, and Victoria vainly tried 
to console herself for the loss of her favourite 
Minister by bestowing a peerage upon Mrs. 
Disraeli. 

Mr. Gladstone was in his shirt-sleeves at Ha- 
warden, cutting down a tree, when the royal mes- 
sage was brought to him. "Very significant," 
he remarked, when he had read the letter, and 
went on cutting down his tree. His secret thoughts 
on the occasion were more explicit, and were com- 
mitted to his diary. " The Ahnighty," he wrote, 
" seems to sustain and spare me for some purpose 
of His own, deeply unworthy as I know myself 
to be. Glory be to His name." * 

1 Buckle, V, 49. aj6,-^ y 28. 

2 Ibid., V, 48. 4 jyjoj.l^y^ J j^ 252, 256. 



332 QUEEN VICTORIA 

The Queen, however, did not share her new 
Minister's view of the Ahnighty's intentions. She 
could not beheve that there was any divine pur- 
pose to be detected in the programme of sweep- 
ing changes which Mr. Gladstone was determined 
to carry out. But what could she do? Mr. Glad- 
stone, with his daemonic energy and his powerful 
majority in the House of Commons, was irre- 
sistible; and for five years (1869-74) Victoria 
found herself condemned to live in an agitating 
atmosphere of interminable reform — reform in the 
Irish Church and the Irish land system, reform 
in education, reform in parliamentary elections, 
reform in the organisation of the Army and the 
Navy, reform in the administration of justice. 
She disapproved, she struggled, she grew very 
angry; she felt that if Albert had been living 
things would never have happened so; but her 
protests and her complaints were alike unavailing. 
The mere effort of grappling with the mass of 
documents which poured in upon her in an ever- 
growing flood was terribly exhausting. When 
the draft of the lengthy and intricate Irish Church 
Bill came before her, accompanied by an explana- 
tory letter from Mr. Gladstone covering a dozen 
closely-written quarto pages, she almost despaired. 
She turned from the Bill to the explanation, and 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 333 

from the explanation back again to the Bill, and 
she could not decide which was the most confusing. 
But she had to do her duty: she had not only to 
read, but to make notes. At last she handed the 
whole heap of papers to Mr. Martin, who hap- 
pened to be staying at Osborne, and requested 
him to make a precis of them.^ When he had done 
so, her disapproval of the measure became more 
marked than ever; but, such was the strength of 
the Government, she actually found herself obliged 
to urge moderation upon the Opposition, lest 
worse should ensue.^ 

In the midst of this crisis, when the future of 
the Irish Church was hanging in the balance, 
Victoria's attention was drawn to another pro- 
posed reform. It was suggested that the sailors 
in the Navy should henceforward be allowed to 
wear beards. " Has Mr. Childers ascertained 
anything on the subject of the beards? " the Queen 
wrote anxiously to the First Lord of the Ad- 
miralty. On the whole. Her Majesty was in favour 
of the change. " Her own personal feeling," she 
wrote, " would be for the beards without the mous- 
taches, as the latter have rather a soldierlike ap- 
pearance; but then the object in view would not 
be obtained, viz. to prevent the necessity of shav- 

1 Martin, Queen Victoria, 50-1. 2 Tait, II, chap. i. 



334) QUEEN VICTORIA 

ing. Therefore it had better be as proposed, the 
entire beard, only it should be kept short and very 
clean." After thinking over the question for an- 
other week, the Queen wrote a final letter. She 
wished, she said, " to make one additional observa- 
tion respecting the beards, viz. that on no account 
should moustaches be allowed without beards. 
That must be clearly understood." ^ 

Changes in the Navy might be tolerated; to lay 
hands upon the Army was a more serious matter. 
From time immemorial there had been a particu- 
larly close connection between the Army and the 
Crown; and Albert had devoted even more time 
and attention to the details of military business 
than to the processes of fresco-painting or the 
planning of sanitary cottages for the deserving 
poor. But now there was to be a great alteration: 
Mr. Gladstone's fiat had gone forth, and the 
Commander-in-Chief was to be removed from his 
direct dependence upon the Sovereign, and made 
subordinate to Parliament and the Secretary of 
State for War. Of all the liberal reforms this 
was the one which aroused the bitterest resentment 
in Victoria. She considered that the change was 
an attack upon her personal position — almost an 
attack upon the personal position of Albert. But 

iChilders, I, 175-7. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 335 

she was helpless, and the Prime Minister had his 
way. When she heard that the dreadful man had 
yet another reform in contemplation — that he was 
about to aboHsh the purchase of military commis- 
sions — she could only feel that it was just what 
might have been expected. For a moment she 
hoped that the House of Lords would come to the 
rescue; the Peers opposed the change with unex- 
pected vigour; but Mr. Gladstone, more conscious 
than ever of the support of the Ahnighty, was 
ready with an ingenious device. The purchase of 
commissions had been originally allowed by Royal 
Warrant; it should now be disallowed by the same 
agency. Victoria was faced by a curious dilemma : 
she abominated the abolition of purchase; but she 
was asked to abolish it by an exercise of sovereign 
power which was very much to her taste. She 
did not hesitate for long; and when the Cabinet, 
in a formal minute, advised her to sign the War- 
rant, she did so with a good grace.^ 

Unacceptable as Mr. Gladstone's policy was, 
there was something else about him which was even 
more displeasing to Victoria. She disliked his 
personal demeanour towards herself. It was not 
that Mr. Gladstone, in his intercourse with her, 
was in any degree lacking in courtesy or respect. 

iMorley, II, 360-5. 



336 QUEEN VICTORIA 

On the contrary, an extraordinary reverence im- 
pregnated his manner, both in his conversation 
and his correspondence with the Sovereign. In- 
deed, with that deep and passionate conservatism 
which, to the very end of his incredible career, 
gave such an unexpected colouring to his inex- 
plicable character, Mr. Gladstone viewed Vic- 
toria through a haze of awe which was almost reli- 
gious — as a sacrosanct embodiment of venerable 
traditions — a vital element in the British Consti- 
tution — a Queen by Act of Parliament. But un- 
fortunately the lady did not appreciate the com- 
pliment. The weU-known complaint — " He speaks 
to me as if I were a public meeting" — whether 
authentic or no — and the turn of the sentence is 
surely a little too epigrammatic to be genuinely 
Victorian — undoubtedly expresses the essential 
element of her antipathy. She had no objection 
to being considered as an institution; she was one, 
and she knew it. But she was a woman too, and 
to be considered only as an institution — that was 
unbearable. And thus all Mr. Gladstone's zeal 
and devotion, his ceremonious phrases, his low 
bows, his punctilious correctitudes, were utterly 
wasted; and when, in the excess of his loy- 
alty, he went further, and imputed to the object 
of his veneration, with obsequious blindness, the 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 337 

subtlety of intellect, the wide reading, the grave 
enthusiasm, which he himself possessed, the mis- 
understanding became complete. The discordance 
between the actual Victoria and this strange Divin- 
ity made in Mr. Gladstone's image produced dis- 
astrous results. Her discomfort and dislike turned 
at last into positive animosity, and, though her 
manners continued to be perfect, she never for a 
moment unbent; while he on his side was over- 
come with disappointment, perplexity, and morti- 
fication.^ 

Yet his fidelity remained unshaken, ^¥hen the 
Cabinet met, the Prime Minister, filled with his 
beatific vision, would open the proceedings by 
reading aloud the letters which he had received 
from the Queen upon the questions of the hour. 
The assembly sat in absolute silence while, one 
after another, the royal missives, with their empha- 
ses, their ejaculations, and their grammatical pecu- 
liarities, boomed forth in all the deep solemnity of 
Mr. Gladstone's utterance. Not a single com- 
ment, of any kind, w^as ever hazarded; and, after 
a fitting pause, the Cabinet proceeded with the 
business of the day.^ 



iJVTorley, II, 423-8; Crawford, 356, 370-1. 
2 Private information. 



338 QUEEN VICTORIA 

II 

Little as Victoria appreciated her Prime Minis- 
ter's attitude towards her, she found that it had its 
uses. The popular discontent at her uninterrupted 
seclusion had been gathering force for many years, 
and now burst out in a new and alarming shape. 
Republicanism was in the air. Radical opinion in 
England, stimulated by the fall of Napoleon III 
and the establishment of a republican government 
in France, suddenly grew more extreme than it 
ever had been since 1848. It also became for the 
first time almost respectable. Chartism had been 
entirely an affair of the lower classes; but now 
Members of Parliament, learned professors, and 
ladies of title openly avowed the most subversive 
views. The monarchy was attacked both in theory 
and in practice. And it was attacked at a vital 
point: it was declared to be too expensive. What 
benefits, it was asked, did the nation reap to 
counterbalance the enormous sums which were ex- 
pended upon the Sovereign? Victoria's retirement 
gave an unpleasant handle to the argument. It 
was pointed out that the ceremonial functions of 
the Crown had virtually lapsed ; and the awkward 
question remained whether any of the other func- 
tions which it did continue to perform were really 
worth .£385,000 per annum. The royal balance- 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 339 

sheet was curiously examined. An anonymous 
pamphlet entitled " What does she do with it? " 
appeared, setting forth the financial position with 
mahcious clarity. The Queen, it stated, was granted 
by the Civil List £60,000 a year for her private 
use ; but the rest of her vast annuity was given, as 
the Act declared, to enable her " to defray the ex- 
penses of her royal household and to support the 
honour and dignity of the Crown." Now it was 
obvious that, since the death of the Prince, the 
expenditure for both these purposes must have 
been very considerably diminished, and it was 
difficult to resist the conclusion that a large sum 
of money was diverted annually from the uses 
for which it had been designed by Parliament, to 
swell the private fortune of Victoria. The precise 
amount of that private fortune it was impossible 
to discover; but there was reason to suppose that 
it was gigantic; perhaps it reached a total of five 
million pounds. The pamphlet protested against 
such a state of affairs, and its protests were re- 
peated vigorously in newspapers and at public 
meetings. Though it is certain that the estimate 
of Victoria's riches was much exaggerated, it is 
equally certain that she was an exceedingly wealthy 
woman. She probably saved £20,000 a year from 
the Civil List, the revenues of the Duchy of Lan- 



340 QUEEN VICTORIA 

caster were steadily increasing, she had inherited 
a considerable property from the Prince Consort, 
and she had been left, in 1852, an estate of half a 
million by Mr. John Neild, an eccentric miser. 
In these circumstances it was not surprising that 
when, in 1871, Parliament was asked to vote a 
dowry of £30,000 to the Princess Louise on her 
marriage with the eldest son of the Duke of 
Argyle, together with an annuity of £6,000, there 
should have been a serious outcry.^ 

In order to conciliate public opinion, the Queen 
opened Parliament in person, and the vote was 
passed almost unanimously. But a few months 
later another demand was made: the Prince 
Arthur had come of age, and the nation was asked 
to grant him an annuity of £15,000. The outcry 
was redoubled. The newspapers were filled 
with angry articles; Bradlaugh thundered against 
" princely paupers " to one of the largest crowds 
that had ever been seen in Trafalgar Square; and 
Sir Charles Dilke expounded the case for a re- 

1 In 1889 it was ofBcially stated that the Queen's total savings 
from the Civil List amounted to £824,025, but that out of this sum 
much had been spent on special entertainments to foreign visitors 
(Lee, 499). Taking into consideration the proceeds from the Duchy 
of Lancaster, which were more than £60,000 a year (Lee, 79), 
the savings of the Prince Consort, and Mr. Neild's legacy, it 
seems probable that, at the time of her death, Victoria's private 
fortune approached two million pounds. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 341 

public in a speech to his constituents at Newcas- 
tle. The Prince's annuity was ultimately sanc- 
tioned in the House of Commons by a large ma- 
jority; but a minority of fifty members voted in 
favour of reducing the sum to £10,000. 

Towards every aspect of this distasteful ques- 
tion, Mr. Gladstone presented an iron front. He 
absolutely discountenanced the extreme section of 
his followers. He declared that the whole of the 
Queen's income was justly at her personal dis- 
posal, argued that to complain of royal savings 
was merely to encourage royal extravagance, and 
successfully convoyed through Parliament the un- 
popular annuities, which, he pointed out, were 
strictly in accordance with precedent. When, in 
1872, Sir Charles Dilke once more returned to the 
charge in the House of Commons, introducing a 
motion for a full enquiry into the Queen's expen- 
diture with a view to a root and branch reform of 
the Civil List, the Prime Minister brought all 
the resources of his powerful and ingenious elo- 
quence to the support of the Crown. He was com- 
pletely successful; and amid a scene of great dis- 
order the motion was ignominiously dismissed. 
Victoria was relieved; but she grew no fonder of 
Mr. Gladstone.^ 

iMorley, II, 426-6; Lee, 410-2, 415-8; Jerrold, Widowhood, 153-7, 
162-3, 169-71. 



342 QUEEN VICTORIA 

It was perhaps the most miserable moment of 
her life. The Ministers, the press, the public, all 
conspired to vex her, to blame her, to misinterpret 
her actions, to be unsympathetic and disrespectful 
in every way. She was " a cruelly misunderstood 
woman," she told Mr. Martin, complaining to him 
bitterly of the unjust attacks which were made 
upon her, and declaring that " the great worry and 
anxiety and hard work for ten years, alone, un- 
aided, with increasing age and never very strong 
health " were breaking her down, and " almost 
drove her to despair." ^ The situation was indeed 
deplorable. It seemed as if her whole existence 
had gone awry; as if an irremediable antagonism 
had grown up between the Queen and the nation. 
If Victoria had died in the early seventies, there 
can be little doubt that the voice of the world 
would have pronounced her a failure. 

Ill 

But she was reserved for a very different fate. 
The outburst of republicanism had been in fact 
the last flicker of an expiring cause. The liberal 
tide, which had been flowing steadily ever since 
the Reform Bill, reached its height with Mr. Glad- 
stone's first administration; and towards the end 

1 Martin, Queen Victoria, 41-2. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 343 

of that administration the inevitable ebb began. 
The reaction, when it came, was sudden and com- 
plete. The General Election of 1874 changed the 
whole face of politics. Mr. Gladstone and the 
Liberals were routed; and the Tory party, for the 
first time for over forty years, attained an unques- 
tioned supremacy in England. It was obvious 
that their surprising triumph was pre-eminently 
due to the skill and vigour of Disraeli. He re- 
turned to office, no longer the dubious commander 
of an insufficient host, but with drums beating and 
flags flying, a conquering hero. And as a con- 
quering hero Victoria welcomed her new Prime 
Minister. 

Then there followed six years of excitement, 
of enchantment, of felicity, of glory, of romance. 
The amazing being, who now at last, at the age 
of seventy, after a lifetime of extraordinary strug- 
gles, had turned into reality the absurdest of his 
boyhood's dreams, knew well enough how to make 
his own, with absolute completeness, the heart of the 
Sovereign Lady whose servant, and whose mas- 
ter, he had so miraculously become. In women's 
hearts he had always read as in an open book. His 
whole career had turned upon those curious enti- 
ties; and the more curious they were, the more 
intimately at home with them he seemed to be. 



344 QUEEN VICTORIA 

But Lady Beaconsfield, with her cracked idolatry, 
and Mrs. Brydges-WiUiams, with her clogs, her 
corpulence, and her legacy, were gone: an even 
more remarkable phenomenon stood in their place. 
He surveyed what was before him with the eye 
of a past-master; and he was not for a moment at 
a loss. He realised everything — the interacting 
complexities of circumstance and character, the 
pride of place mingled so inextricably with per- 
sonal arrogance, the superabundant emotionalism, 
the ingenuousness of outlook, the solid, the labo- 
rious respectability, shot through so incongruously 
by temperamental cravings for the coloured and 
the strange, the singular intellectual limitations, 
and the mysteriously essential female elements 
impregnating every particle of the whole. A smile 
hovered over his impassive features, and he dubbed 
Victoria " the Faery." The name delighted him, 
for, with that epigrammatic ambiguity so dear to 
his heart, it precisely expressed his vision of the 
Queen. The Spenserian allusion was very pleas- 
ant — the elegant evocations of Gloriana; but there 
was more in it than that: there was the suggestion 
of a diminutive creature, endowed with magical — 
and mythical — properties, and a portentousness 
almost ridiculously out of keeping with the rest 
of her make-up. The Faery, he determined, should 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 345 

henceforward wave her wand for him alone. De- 
tachment is always a rare quality, and rarest of all, 
perhaps, among politicians; but that veteran ego- 
tist possessed it in a supreme degree. Not only 
did he know what he had to do, not only did he do 
it; he was in the audience as well as on the stage; 
and he took in with the rich relish of a connoisseur 
every feature of the entertaining situation, every 
phase of the delicate drama, and every detail of 
his own consummate performance. 

The smile hovered and vanished, and, bowing 
low with Oriental gravity and Oriental submis- 
siveness, he set himself to his task. He had under- 
stood from the first that in deahng with the Faery 
the appropriate method of approach was the very 
antithesis of the Gladstonian; and such a method 
was naturally his. It was not his habit to harangue 
and exhort and expatiate in official conscientious- 
ness; he liked to scatter flowers along the path of 
business, to compress a weighty argument into a 
happy phrase, to insinuate what was in his mind 
with an air of friendship and confidential courtesy. 
He was nothing if not personal; and he had per- 
ceived that personality was the key that opened 
the Faery's heart. Accordingly, he never for a 
moment allowed his intercourse with her to lose 
the personal tone; he invested all the transaction^ 



346 QUEEN VICTORIA 

of State with the charms of familiar conversation; 
she was always the royal lady, the adored and 
revered mistress, he the devoted and respectful 
friend. When once the personal relation was 
firmly established, every difficulty disappeared. 
But to maintain that relation uninterruptedly in 
a smooth and even course a particular care was 
necessary : the bearings had to be most assiduously 
oiled. Nor was Disraeli in any doubt as to the 
nature of the lubricant. " You have heard me 
called a flatterer," he said to Matthew Arnold, 
" and it is true. Everyone likes flattery ; and when 
you come to royalty you should lay it on with a 
trowel." ^ He practised what he preached. His 
adulation was incessant, and he applied it in the 
very thickest slabs. " There is no honor and no 
reward," he declared, " that with him can ever 
equal the possession of your Majesty's kind 
thoughts. All his own thoughts and feelings and 
duties and affections are now concentrated in your 
Majesty, and he desires nothing more for his re- 
maining years than to serve your Majesty, or, if 
that service ceases, to live still on its memory as 
a period of his existence most interesting and fas- 
cinating." ' "In life," he told her, "one must 
have for one's thoughts a sacred depository, and 

1 Buckle, VI, 463. 2 Ibid., VI, 226. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 347 

Lord Beaconsfield ever presumes to seek that in 
his Sovereign Mistress." ^ She was not only his 
own solitary support; she was the one prop of the 
State. " If your Majesty is ill," he wrote during 
a grave political crisis, "he is sure he will himself 
break down. All, really, depends upon your 
Majesty." " He lives only for Her," he assev- 
erated, " and works only for Her, and without Her 
all is lost." ^ When her birthday came he pro- 
duced an elaborate confection of hyperbolic com- 
pliment. " To-day Lord Beaconsfield ought fitly, 
perhaps, to congratulate a powerful Sovereign on 
her imperial sway, the vastness of her Empire, and 
the success and strength of her fleets and armies. 
But he cannot, his mind is in another mood. He 
can only think of the strangeness of his destiny 
that it has come to pass that he should be the serv- 
ant of one so great, and whose infinite kindness, 
the brightness of whose intelligence and the firm- 
ness of whose will, have enabled him to undertake 
labours to which he otherwise would be quite un- 
equal, and supported him in all things by a conde- 
scending sympathy, which in the hour of difficulty 
ahke charms and inspires. Upon the Sovereign of . 
many lands and many hearts may an omnipotent 
Providence shed every blessing that the wise can 

1 Buckle, VI, 445m. 2 Ibid., VI, 254-5. 



348 QUEEN VICTORIA 

desire and the virtuous deserve!"^ In those ex- 
pert hands the trowel seemed to assume the quah- 
ties of some lofty masonic symbol — to be the 
ornate and glittering vehicle of verities unrealised 
by the profane. 

Such tributes were delightful, but they remained 
in the nebulous region of words, and Disraeli had 
determined to give his blandishments a more sig- 
nificant solidity. He deliberately encouraged 
those high views of her own position which had 
always been native to Victoria's mind and had 
been reinforced by the principles of Albert and 
the doctrines of Stockmar. He professed to a 
belief in a theory of the Constitution which gave 
the Sovereign a leading place in the councils of 
government; but his pronouncements upon the 
subject were indistinct; and when he emphatically 
declared that there ought to be " a real Throne," 
it was probably with the mental addition that that 
throne would be a very unreal one indeed whose 
occupant was unamenable to his cajoleries. But 
the vagueness of his language was in itself an 
added stimulant to Victoria. Skilfully confusing 
the woman and the Queen, he threw, with a gran- 
diose gesture, the government of England at her 
feet, as if in doing so he were performing an act 

1 Buckle, VI, 430. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 349 

of personal homage. In his first audience after 
returning to power, he assured her that " whatever 
she wished should be done." ^ When the intricate 
Public Worship Regulation Bill was being dis- 
cussed by the Cabinet, he told the Faery that his 
"only object" was "to further your Majesty's 
wishes in this matter." ^ When he brought off his 
great coup over the Suez Canal, he used expres- 
sions which implied that the only gainer by the 
transaction was Victoria. " It is just settled," he 
wrote in triumph; " you have it. Madam . . . Four 
millions sterhng! and almost immediately. There 
was only one firm that could do it — Rothschilds. 
They behaved admirably; advanced the money at 
a low rate, and the entire interest of the Khedive 
is now yours. Madam." ^ Nor did he limit himself 
to highly-spiced insinuations. Writing with all 
the authority of his office, he advised the Queen 
that she had the constitutional right to dismiss a 
Ministry which was supported by a large majority 
in the House of Commons; he even urged her to 
do so, if, in her opinion, " your Majesty's Govern- 
ment have from wilfulness, or even from weak- 
ness, deceived your Majesty."* To the horror of 
Mr. Gladstone, he not only kept the Queen in- 

1 Buckle, V, 286. ^Ihid., V, 448-9. 

2 Ibid., V, 321. ^Ihid., II, 246. 



350 QUEEN VICTORIA 

formed as to the general course of business in the 
Cabinet, but revealed to her the part taken in its 
discussions by individual members of it/ Lord 
Derby, the son of the late Prime Minister and 
Disraeli's Foreign Secretary, viewed these devel- 
opments with grave mistrust. " Is there not," he 
ventured to write to his Chief, " just a risk of 
encouraging her in too large ideas of her personal 
power, and too great indifference to what the 
public expects? I only ask; it is for you to 
judge." ' 

As for Victoria, she accepted everything — com- 
pliments, flatteries, Elizabethan prerogatives — 
without a single qualm. After the long gloom of 
her bereavement, after the chill of the Gladston- 
ian discipline, she expanded to the rays of Dis- 
raeli's devotion like a flower in the sun. The 
change in her situation was indeed miraculous. 
No longer was she obliged to puzzle for hours 
over the complicated details of business, for now 
she had only to ask Mr. Disraeli for an explana- 
tion, and he would give it her in the most concise, 
in the most amusing, way. No longer was she 
worried by alarming novelties; no longer was she 
put out at finding herself treated, by a reverential 
gentleman in high collars, as if she were some em- 

1 Morley, II, 574-6. ? Buckle, V, 414. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 351 

bodied precedent, with a recondite knowledge of 
Greek. And her deliverer was surely the most fas- 
cinating of men. The strain of charlatanism, 
which had unconsciously captivated her in Napo- 
leon III, exercised the same enchanting effect in 
the case of Disraeli. Like a dram-drinker, whose 
ordinary life is passed in dull sobriety, her unso- 
phisticated intelligence gulped down his rococo 
allurements with peculiar zest. She became intox- 
icated, entranced. Believing all that he told her 
of herself, she completely regained the self-confi- 
dence which had been slipping away from her 
throughout the dark period that followed Albert's 
death. She swelled with a new elation, while he, 
conjuring up before her wonderful Oriental vi- 
sions, dazzled her eyes with an imperial grandeur 
of which she had only dimly dreamed. Under the 
compelling influence, her very demeanour altered. 
Her short, stout figure, with its folds of black vel- 
vet, its muslin streamers, its heavy pearls at the 
heavy neck, assumed an almost menacing air. In 
her countenance, from which the charm of youth 
had long since vanished, and which had not yet 
been softened by age, the traces of grief, of disap- 
pointment, and of displeasure were still visible, but 
they were overlaid by looks of arrogance and sharp 
lines of peremptory hauteur. Only, when Mr. 



352 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Disraeli appeared, the expression changed in an 
instant, and the forbidding visage became charged 
with smiles.^ For him she would do anything. 
Yielding to his encouragements, she began to 
emerge from her seclusion; she appeared in Lon- 
don in semi-state, at hospitals and concerts; she 
opened Parliament; she reviewed troops and dis- 
tributed medals at Aldershot.^ But such public 
signs of favour were trivial in comparison with her 
private attentions. During his hours of audience, 
she could hardly restrain her excitement and de- 
light. " I can only describe my reception," he 
wrote to a friend on one occasion, " by telling you 
that I really thought she was going to embrace me. 
She was wreathed with smiles, and, as she tattled, 
glided about the room like a bird." ^ In his ab- 
sence, she talked of him perpetually, and there was 
a note of unusual vehemence in her solicitude for 
his health. " John Manners," Disraeli told Lady 
Bradford, " who has just come from Osborne, says 
that the Faery only talked of one subject, and 
that was her Primo. According to him, it was her 
gracious opinion that the Government should make 
my health a Cabinet question. Dear John seemed 
quite surprised at what she said; but you are more 

1 Qvarterly Review, cxciii, 334. 2 Lee, 4-34f-5. 

3 Buckle, V, 339. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 353 

used to these ebullitions." ^ She often sent him 
presents; an illustrated album arrived for him 
regularly from Windsor on Christmas Day.^ But 
her most valued gifts were the bunches of spring 
flowers which, gathered by herself and her ladies 
in the woods at Osborne, marked in an especial 
manner the warmth and tenderness of her senti^ 
ments. Among these it was, he declared, the prim- 
roses that he loved the best. They were, he said, 
" the ambassadors of Spring," " the gems and 
jewels of Nature." He liked them, he assured 
her, " so much better for their being wild ; they 
seem an offering from the Fauns and Dryads of 
Osborne." " They show," he told her, " that your 
Majesty^s sceptre has touched the enchanted Isle." 
He sat at dinner with heaped-up bowls of them on 
every side, and told his guests that " they were all 
sent to me this morning by the Queen from Os- 
borne, as she knows it is my favorite flower." ^ 

As time went on, and as it became clearer and 
clearer that the Faery's thraldom was complete, 
his protestations grew steadily more highly-col- 
oured and more unabashed. At last he ventured 
to import into his blandishments a strain of adora- 
tion that was almost avowedly romv^ntic. In 
phrases of baroque convolution, he conveyed the 

1 Buckle, V, 384. 2 Ibid., VI, 468. s Ibid., VI, 629. 



354 QUEEN VICTORIA 

message of his heart. The pressure of business, 
he wrote, had " so absorbed and exhausted him, 
that towards the hour of post he has not had clear- 
ness of mind, and vigour of pen, adequate to con- 
vey his thoughts and facts to the most loved and 
illustrious being, who deigns to consider them." ^ 
She sent him some primroses, and he replied that 
he could " truly say they are ' more precious than 
rubies,' coming, as they do, and at such a moment, 
from a Sovereign whom he adores." ^ She sent 
him snowdrops, and his sentiment overflowed into 
poetry. " Yesterday eve," he wrote, " there ap- 
peared, in Whitehall Gardens, a delicate-looking 
case, with a royal superscription, which, when he 
opened, he thought, at first, that your Majesty 
had graciously bestowed upon him the stars of 
your Majesty's principal orders. And, indeed, he 
was so impressed with this graceful illusion, that, 
having a banquet, where there were many stars 
and ribbons, he could not resist the temptation, 
by placing some snowdrops on his heart, of show- 
ing that, he, too, was decorated by a gracious Sov- 
ereign. 

" Then, in the middle of the night, it occurred 
to him, that it might all be an enchantment, and 
that, perhaps, it was a Faery gift and came from 

1 Buckle, VI, 248. 2 ibid., VI, 246-7. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 355 

another monarch: Queen Titania, gathering flow- 
ers, with her Court, in a soft and sea-girt isle, and 
sending magic blossoms, which, they say, turn the 
heads of those who receive them." ^ 

A Faery gift! Did he smile as he wrote the 
words? Perhaps; and yet it would be rash to con- 
clude that his perfervid declarations were alto- 
gether without sincerity. Actor and spectator 
both, the two characters were so intimately blended 
together in that odd composition that they formed 
an inseparable unity, and it was impossible to say 
that one of them was less genuine than the other. 
With one element, he could coldly appraise the 
Faery's intellectual capacity, note with some sur- 
prise that she could be on occasion " most interest- 
ing and amusing," and then continue his use of 
the trowel with an ironical solemnity; while, with 
the other, he could be overwhelmed by the imme- 
morial panoply of royalty, and, thrilling with the 
sense of his own strange elevation, dream himself 
into a gorgeous phantasy of crowns and powers 
and chivalric love. When he told Victoria that 
" during a somewhat romantic and imaginative 
life, nothing has ever occurred to him so interest- 
ing as this confidential correspondence with one 
so exalted and so inspiring," " was he not in earnest 

1 Buckle, VI, 464-7. 2 Buckle, VI, 238. 



356 QUEEN VICTORIA 

after all? When he wrote to a lady about the 
Court, " I love the Queen — perhaps the only per- 
son in this world left to me that I do love," ^ was 
he not creating for himself an enchanted palace 
out of the Arabian Nights, full of melancholy and 
spangles, in which he actually believed? Victoria's 
state of mind was far more simple; untroubled by 
imaginative yearnings, she never lost herself in 
that nebulous region of the spirit where feeling 
and fancy grow confused. Her emotions, with all 
their intensity and all their exaggeration, retained 
the plain prosaic texture of everyday life. And 
it was fitting that her expression of them should 
be equally commonplace. She was, she told her 
Prime Minister, at the end of an official letter, 
" yours aff'ly V. R. and I." In such a phrase 
the deep reality of her feeling is instantly mani- 
fest. The Faery's feet were on the solid earth; 
it was the ruse cynic who was in the air. 

He had taught her, however, a lesson, which she 
had learnt with alarming rapidity. A second 
Gloriana, did he call her? Very well, then, she 
would show that she deserved the compliment. 
Disquieting symptoms followed fast. In May, 
1874, the Tsar, whose daughter had just been 
married to Victoria's second son, the Duke of 

1 Buckle, VI, 462. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 357 

Edinburgh, was in London, and, by an unfortunate 
error, it had been arranged that his departure 
should not take place until two days after the date 
on which his royal hostess had previously decided 
to go to Balmoral. Her Majesty refused to mod- 
ify her plans. It was pointed out to her that the 
Tsar would certainly be offended, that the most 
serious consequences might follow; Lord Derby 
protested; Lord Salisbmy, the Secretary of State 
for India, was much perturbed. But the Faery 
was unconcerned; she had settled to go to Bal- 
moral on the 18th, and on the 18th she would go. 
At last Disraeli, exercising all his influence, in- 
duced her to agree to stay in London for two days 
more. " My head is still on my shoulders," he 
told Lady Bradford. " The great lady has abso- 
lutely postponed her departure! Everybody had 
failed, even the Prince of Wales; . . . and I 
have no doubt I am not in favour. I can't help 
it. Salisbury says I have saved an Afghan War, 
and Derby compliments me on my unrivalled tri- 
umph." ^ But before very long, on another issue, 
the triumph was the Faery's. Disraeli, wiio had 
suddenly veered towards a new Imperialism, had 
thrown out the suggestion that the Queen of Eng- 
land ought to become the Empress of India. Vic- 

1 Buckle, V, 414-5. 



358 QUEEN VICTORIA 

toria seized upon the idea with avidity, and, in 
season and out of season, pressed upon her Prime 
Minister the desirability of putting his proposal 
into practice. He demurred; but she was not to 
be baulked; and in 1876, in spite of his own un- 
willingness and that of his entire Cabinet, he found 
himself obliged to add to the troubles of a stormy 
session by introducing a bill for the alteration of 
the Royal Title/ His compliance, however, finally 
conquered the Faery's heart. The measure was 
angrily attacked in both Houses, and Victoria was 
deeply touched by the untiring energy with which 
Disraeli defended it. She was, she said, much 
grieved by " the worry and annoyance " to which 
he was subjected; she feared she was the cause of 
it; and she would never forget what she owed to 
" her kind, good, and considerate friend." At the 
same time, her wrath fell on the Opposition. Their 
conduct, she declared, was " extraordinary, incom- 
prehensible, and mistaken," and, in an emphatic 
sentence which seemed to contradict both itself and 
all her former proceedings, she protested that she 
" would be glad if it were more generally known 
that it was her wish, as people 'will have it, that 
it has been forced upon her! " ^ When the affair 
was successfully over, the imperial triumph wa.« 

1 Buckle, V, 466-8; VI, 457-8. ^Ihid., V, 468-9, 473. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 359 

celebrated in a suitable manner. On the day of 
the Delhi Proclamation, the new Earl of Beacons- 
field went to Windsor to dine with the new Em- 
press of India. That night the Faery, usually so 
homely in her attire, appeared in a glittering 
panoply of enormous uncut jewels, which had been 
presented to her by the reigning Princes of her 
Raj. At the end of the meal the Prime Minister, 
breaking through the rules of etiquette, arose, and 
in a flowery oration proposed the health of the 
Queen-Empress. His audacity was well received, 
and his speech was rewarded by a smiling 
curtsey.^ 

These were significant episodes; but a still more 
serious manifestation of Victoria's temper oc- 
curred in the following year, during the crowning 
crisis of Beaconsfield's life. His growing imperial- 
ism, his desire to magnify the power and prestige 
of England, his insistence upon a " spirited for- 
eign policy," had brought him into collision with 
Russia; the terrible Eastern Question loomed up; 
and when war broke out between Russia and Tur- 
key, the gravity of the situation became extreme. 
The Prime Minister's pohcy was fraught with dif- 
ficulty and danger. Reahsing perfectly the appall- 
ing implications of an Anglo-Russian war, he was 

1 HamUton, 120; Quarterly Review, cxxxix, 334. 



360 QUEEN VICTORIA 

yet prepared to face even that eventuality if he. 
could obtain his ends by no other method ; but he be- 
lieved that Russia in reality was still less desirous 
of a rupture, and that, if he played his game with 
sufficient boldness and adroitness, she would yield, 
when it came to the point, all that he required 
without a blow. It was clear that the course he 
had marked out for himself was full of hazard, 
and demanded an extraordinary nerve; a single 
false step, and either himself, or England, might 
be plunged in disaster. But nerve he had never 
lacked; he began his diplomatic egg-dance with 
high assurance; and then he discovered that, be- 
sides the Rilssian Government, besides the Liber- 
als and Mr. Gladstone, there were two additional 
sources of perilous embarrassment with which he 
would have to reckon. In the first place there 
was a strong party in the Cabinet, headed by Lord 
Derby, the Foreign Secretary, which was unwill- 
ing to take the risk of war; but his culminating 
anxiety was the Faery. 

From the first, her attitude was uncompromis- 
ing. The old hatred of Russia, which had been 
engendered by the Crimean War, surged up again 
within her; she remembered Albert's prolonged 
animosity ; she felt the prickings of her own great- 
ness; and she flung herself into the turmoil with 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 361 

passionate heat. Her indignation with the Oppo- 
sition — with anyone who ventured to sympathise 
with the Russians in their quarrel with the Turks 
— was unbounded. When anti-Turkish meetings 
were held in London, presided over by the Duke 
of Westminster and Lord Shaftesbury, and at- 
tended by Mr. Gladstone and other prominent 
Radicals, she considered that " the Attorney- 
General ought to be set at these men "; " it can't," 
she exclaimed, " be constitutional." ^ Never in her 
life, not even in the crisis over the Ladies of the 
Bedchamber, did she show herself a more furious 
partisan. But her displeasure was not reserved 
for the Radicals; the backsliding Conservatives 
equally felt its force. She was even discontented 
with Lord Beaconsfield himself. Failing entirely 
to appreciate the delicate complexity of his policy, 
she constantly assailed him with demands for vig- 
orous action, interpreted each finesse as a sign of 
weakness, and was ready at every juncture to let 
slip the dogs of war. As the situation developed, 
her anxiety grew feverish. " The Queen," she 
wrote, " is feeling terribly anxious lest delay 
should cause us to be too late and lose our pres- 
tige for ever ! It worries her night and day." ^ 
" The Faery," Beaconsfield told Lady Bradford, 

1 Buckle, VI, 106-7. 2 Ibid., VI, 144. 



362 QUEEN VICTORIA 

" writes every day and telegraphs every hour; this 
is almost literally the case." ^ She raged loudly 
against the Russians. " And the language," she 
cried, " the insulting language — used by the Rus- 
sians against us! It makes the Queen's blood 
boil!"' "Oh," she wrote a little later, "if the 
Queen were a man, she would like to go and give 
those Russians, whose word one cannot believe, 
such a beating! We shall never be friends again 
till we have it out. This the Queen feels sure of." * 
The unfortunate Prime Minister, urged on to 
violence by Victoria on one side, had to deal, on 
the other, with a Foreign Secretary who was fun- 
damentally opposed to any policy of active inter- 
ference at all. Between the Queen and Lord 
Derby he held a harassed course. He gained, in- 
deed, some slight satisfaction in playing off the 
one against the other — in stimulating Lord Derby 
with the Queen's missives, and in appeasing the 
Queen by repudiating Lord Derby's opinions; on 
one occasion he actually went so far as to com- 
pose, at Victoria's request, a letter bitterly attack- 
ing his colleague, which Her Majesty forthwith 
signed, and sent, without alteration, to the Foreigr 
Secretary.* But such devices only gave a tern- 

1 Buckle, VI, 150. ^Ibid., VI, 217. 

^Ihid., VI, 154. ^Ibid., VI, 157-9. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 363 

porary relief; and it soon became evident that 
Victoria's martial ardour was not to be side- 
tracked by hostilities against Lord Derby; hostili- 
ties against Russia were what she wanted, what 
she would, what she must, have. For now, casting 
aside the last relics of moderation, she began to 
attack her friend with a series of extraordinary 
threats. Not once, not twice, but many times she 
held over his head the formidable menace of her 
imminent abdication. " If England," she wrote 
to Beaconsfield, " is to kiss Russia's feet, she will 
not be a party to the humiliation of England and 
would lay down her crown," and she added that 
the Prime Minister might, if he thought fit, repeat 
her words to the Cabinet.^ " This delay," she 
ejaculated, " this uncertainty by which, abroad, 
we are losing our prestige and our position, while 
Russia is advancing and will be before Constanti- 
nople in no time! Then the Government will be 
fearfully blamed and the Queen so humiliated that 
she thinks she would abdicate at once. Be bold! " ^ 
" She feels," she reiterated, " she cannot, as she 
before said, remain the Sovereign of a country 
that is letting itself down to kiss the feet of the 
great barbarians, the retarders of all liberty and 
civilisation that exists." ^ When the Russians ad- 

1 Buckle, VI, 132. Hhid., VI, 148. slhid., VI, 217. 



364. QUEEN VICTORIA 

vanced to the outskirts of Constantinople she fired 
off three letters in a day demanding war; and 
when she learnt that the Cabinet had only decided 
to send the Fleet to Gallipoli she declared that 
" her first impulse " was " to lay down the thorny 
crown, which she feels little satisfaction in retain- 
ing if the position of this country is to remain as it 
is now." ^ It is easy to imagine the agitating effect 
of such a correspondence upon Beaconsfield. This 
was no longer the Faery; it was a genie whom he 
had rashly called out of her bottle, and who was 
now intent upon showing her supernal power. 
More than once, perplexed, dispirited, shattered 
by illness, he .had thoughts of withdrawing alto- 
gether from the game. One thing alone, he told 
Lady Bradford, with a wry smile, prevented him. 
" If I could only," ha wrote, " face the scene which 
would occur at headquarters if I resigned, I would 
do so at once." ^ 

He held on, however, to emerge victorious at 
last. The Queen was pacified; Lord Derby was 
replaced by Lord Salisbury; and at the Congress 
of Berlin der alte Jude carried all before him. 
He returned to England in triumph, and assured 
the delighted Victoria that she would very soon be, 

1 Buckle, VI, 243-5. 2 Ibid., VI, 190. 



GLADSTONE AND BEACONSFIELD 365 

if she was not already, the " Dictatress of Eu- 

j> 1 
rope. 

But soon there was an unexpected reverse. At 
the General Election of 1880 the country, mis- 
trustful of the forward policy of the Conserva- 
tives, and carried away by Mr. Gladstone's ora- 
tory, returned the Liberals to power. Victoria 
was horrified, but within a year she was to be yet 
more nearly hit. The grand romance had come to 
its conclusion. Lord Beaconsfield, worn out with 
age and maladies, but moving still, an assiduous 
mummy,, from dinner-party to dinner-party, sud- 
denly moved no longer. When she knew that the 
end was inevitable, she seemed, by a pathetic in- 
stinct, to divest herself of her royalty, and to 
shrink, with hushed gentleness, beside , him, a 
woman and nothing more. " I send some Osborne 
primroses," she wrote to him with touching sim- 
plicity, " and I meant to pay you a little visit this 
week, but I thought it better you should be quite 
quiet and not speak. And I beg you will be very 
good and obey the doctors." She would see him, 
she said, " when we come back from Osborne, 
which won't be long." " Everyone is so distressed 
at your not being well," she added; and she was, 
" Ever yours very aff 'ly, V.R.I." When the royal 

1 Lee, 445-6. 



366 QUEEN VICTORIA 

letter was given him, the strange old comedian, 
stretched on his bed of death, poised it in his hand, 
appeared to consider deeply, and then whispered 
to those about him, " This ought to be read to me 
by a Privy Councillor." ^ 

1 Buckle, VI, 613^. 



CHAPTER IX 

OLD AGE 

I 

Meanwhile in Victoria's private life many- 
changes and developments had taken place. With 
the marriages of her elder children her family 
circle widened; grandchildren appeared; and a 
multitude of new domestic interests sprang up. 
The death of King Leopold in 1865 had removed 
the predominant figure of the older generation, 
and the functions he had performed as the centre 
and adviser of a large group of relatives in Ger- 
many and in England devolved upon Victoria. 
These functions she discharged with unremitting 
industry, carrying on an enormous correspondence, 
and following with absorbed interest every detail 
in the lives of the ever-ramifying cousinhood. And 
she tasted to the full both the joys and the pains 
of family affection. She took a particular delight 
in her grandchildren, to whom she showed an 
indulgence which their parents had not always 
enjoyed, though, even to her grandchildren, she 
could be, when the occasion demanded it, severe. 

367 



368 QUEEN VICTORIA 

The eldest of them, the httle Prince Wilhelm of 
Prussia, was a remarkably headstrong child; he 
dared to be impertinent even to his grandmother; 
and once, when .'".he told him to bow to a visitor at 
Osborne, he disobeyed her outright. This would 
not do: the order was sternly repeated, and the 
naughty boy, noticing that his kind grandmama 
had suddenly turned into a most terrifying lady, 
submitted his will to hers, and bowed very low 
indeed/ 

It would have been well if all the Queen's 
domestic troubles could have been got over as 
.easily. Among her more serious distresses was the 
conduct of the Prince of Wales. The young man 
was now independent and married; he had shaken 
the parental yoke from his shoulders ; he was posi- 
tively beginning to do as he liked. Victoria was 
much perturbed, and her worst fears seemed to 
be justified when in 1870 he appeared as a witness 
in a society divorce case. It was clear that the 
heir to the throne had been mixing with people 
of whom she did not at all approve. What was 
to be done? She saw that it was not only her son 
that was to blame — that it was the whole system 
of society; and so she despatched a letter to Mr. 
Delane, the editor of The Times, asking him if 

iHall6, 296. 



OLD AGE 369 

he would " frequently write articles pointing out 
the immense danger and evil of the wretched 
frivolity and levity of the views and lives of the 
Higher Classes." And five years later Mr. De- 
lane did write an article upon that very subject.^ 
Yet it seemed to have very httle effect. 

Ah! if only the Higher Classes would learn to 
live as she lived in the domestic sobriety of her 
sanctuary at Balmoral! For more and more did 
she find solace and refreshment in her Highland 
domain; and twice yearly, in the spring and in 
the autumn, with a sigh of relief, she set her face 
northwards, in spite of the humble protests of 
Ministers, who murmured vainly in the royal ears 
that to transact the affairs of State over an inter- 
val of six hundred miles added considerably to the 
cares of government. Her ladies, too, felt occa- 
sionally a slight reluctance to set out, for, espe- 
cially in the early days, the long pilgrimage was 
not without its drawbacks. For many years the 
Queen's conservatism forbade the continuation of 
the railway up Deeside, so that the last stages 
of the journey had to be accomplished in carriages. 
But, after all, carriages had their good points; 
they were easy, for instance, to get in and out 
of, which was an important consideration, for the 

1 Notes and Queries, May 20, 1920. 






370 QUEEN VICTORIA 

royal train remained for long immune from mod- 
ern conveniences, and when it drew up, on some 
border moorland, far from any platform, the high- 
bred dames were obliged to descend to earth by 
the perilous foot-board, the only pair of folding 
steps being reserved for Her Majesty's saloon. In 
the days of crinolines such moments were some- 
times awkward; and it was occasionally necessary 
to summon Mr. Johnstone, the short and sturdy 
Manager of the Caledonian Railway, who, more 
than once, in a high gale and drenching rain with 
great difficulty " pushed up " — as he himself de- 
scribed it — some unlucky Lady Blanche or Lady 
Agatha into her compartment.^ But Victoria 
cared for none of these things. She was only in- 
tent upon regaining, with the utmost swiftness, 
her enchanted Castle, where every spot was 
charged with memories, where every memory was 
sacred, and where life was passed in an inces- 
sant and delightful round of absolutely trivial 
events. 

And it was not only the place that she loved; 
she was equally attached to " the simple moun- 
taineers," from whom, she said, " she learnt many 
a lesson of resignation and faith." " Smith and 
Grant and Ross and Thompson — she was devoted 

1 Neele, 476-8, 487, 2 More Leaves, v. 



OLD AGE 371 

to them all; but, beyond the rest, she was devoted 
to John Brown. The Prince's gillie had now be- 
come the Queen's personal attendant — a body 
servant from whom she was never parted, who 
accompanied her on her drives, waited on her dur- 
ing the day, and slept in a neighbouring chamber 
at night. She liked his strength, his solidity, the 
sense he gave her of physical security; she even 
liked his rugged manners and his rough unac- 
commodating speech. She allowed him to take 
liberties with her which would have been unthink- 
able from anybody else. To bully the Queen, to 
order her about, to reprimand her — who could 
dream of venturing upon such audacities? And 
yet, when she received such treatment from John 
Brown, she positively seemed to enjoy it. The 
eccentricity appeared to be extraordinary; but, 
after all, it is no uncommon thing for an auto- 
cratic dowager to allow some trusted indispensable 
servant to adopt towards her an attitude of au- 
thority which is jealously forbidden to relatives or 
friends: the power of a dependant still remains, 
by a psychological sleight-of-hand, one's own 
power, even when it is exercised over oneself. 
When Victoria meekly obeyed the abrupt com- 
mands of her henchman to get off her pony or 
put on her shawl, was she not displaying, and in 



372 QUEEN VICTORIA 

the highest degree, the force of her voHtion? Peo- 
ple might wonder ; she cojild not help that ; this 
was the manner in which it pleased her to act, and 
there was an end of it. To have submitted her 
judgment to a son or a Minister might have 
seemed wiser or more natural; but if she had done 
so, she instinctively felt, she would indeed have lost 
her independence. And yet upon somebody she 
longed to depend. Her days were heavy with the 
long process of domination. As she drove in 
silence over the moors she leaned back in the car- 
riage, oppressed and weary; but what a relief! — 
John Brown was behind on the rumble, and his 
strong arm would be there for her to lean upon 
when she got out. 

He had, too, in her mind, a special connection 
with Albert. In their expeditions the Prince had 
always trusted him more than anyone; the gruff, 
kind, hairy Scotsman was, she felt, in some mys- 
terious way, a legacy from the dead. She same to 
believe at last — or so it appeared — that the spirit 
of Albert was nearer when Brown was near. 
Often, when seeking inspiration over some com- 
plicated question of political or domestic import, 
she would gaze with deep concentration at her late 
husband's bust. But it was also noticed that 
sometimes in such moments of doubt and hesita- 



OLD AGE 373 

tion Her Majesty's looks would fix themselves 
upon John Brown. 

Eventually, the " simple mountaineer " became 
almost a state personage. The influence which he 
wielded was not to be overlooked. Lord Beacons- 
field was careful, from time to time, to send 
courteous messages to " Mr. Brown " in his letters 
to the Queen, and the French Government took 
particular pains to provide for his comfort during 
the visits of the English Sovereign to France. It 
was only natural that among the elder members 
of the royal family he should not have been popu- 
lar, and that his failings — for failings he had, 
though Victoria would never notice his too acute 
appreciation of Scotch whisky — should have been 
the subject of acrimonious comment at Court. 
But he served his mistress faithfully, and to ignore 
him would be a sign of disrespect to her biog- 
rapher. For the Queen, far from making a secret 
of her affectionate friendship, took care to pub- 
lish it to the world. By her orders two gold 
medals were struck in his honour; on his death, in 
1883, a long and eulogistic obituary notice of him 
appeared in the Court Circular; and a Brown 
memorial brooch — of gold, with the late gillie's 
head on one side and the royal monogram on the 
other — was designed by Her Majesty for presen- 



374 QUEEN VICTORIA 

tation to her Highland servants and cottagers, to 
be worn by them on the anniversary of his death, 
with a mourning scarf and pins. In the second 
series of extracts from the Queen's Highland 
Journal, published in 1884, her " devoted per- 
sonal attendant and faithful friend " appears upon 
almost every page, and is in effect the hero of the 
book. With an absence of reticence remarkable 
in royal persons, Victoria seemed to demand, in 
this private and delicate matter, the sympathy of 
the whole nation; and yet — such is the world! — 
there were those who actually treated the relations 
between their Sovereign and her servant as a 
theme for ribald jests.^ 

II 

The busy years hastened away; the traces of 
Time's unimaginable touch grew manifest; and 
old age, approaching, laid a gentle hold upon Vic- 
toria. The grey hair whitened ; the mature features 
mellowed; the short firm jSgure amplified and 
moved more slowly, supported by a stick. And, 
simultaneously, in the whole tenour of the Queen's 
existence an extraordinary transformation came 
to pass. The nation's attitude towards her, criti- 
cal and even hostile as it had been for so many 

iMore Leaves, passim; Crawford, 326-31; private information, 



OLD AGE 375 

years, altogether changed; while there was a cor- 
responding alteration in the temper of Victoria's 
own mind. 

Many causes led to this result. Among them 
were the repeated strokes of personal misfortune 
which befell the Queen during a cruelly short 
space of years. In 1878 the Princess Alice, who 
had married in 1862 the Prince Louis of Hesse- 
Darmstadt, died in tragic circumstances. In the 
following year the Prince Imperial, the only son 
of the Empress Eugenie, to whom Victoria, since 
the catastrophe of 1870, had become devotedly at- 
tached, was killed in the Zulu War. Two years 
later, in 1881, the Queen lost Lord Beaconsfield, 
and, in 1883, John Brown. In 1884 the Prince 
Leopold, Duke of Albany, who had been an in- 
valid from birth, died prematurely, shortly after 
his marriage. Victoria's cup of sorrows was in- 
deed overflowing ; and the public, as it watched the 
widowed mother weeping for her children and her 
friends, displayed a constantly increasing sym- 
pathy. 

An event which occurred in 1882 revealed and 
accentuated the feelings of the nation. As the 
Queen, at Windsor, was walking from the train to 
her carriage, a youth named Roderick Maclean 
fired a pistol at her from a distance of a few 



376 QUEEN VICTORIA 

yards. An Eton boy struck up Maclean's arm 
with an umbrella before the pistol went off; no 
damage was done, and the culprit was at once 
arrested. This was the last of a series of seven 
attempts upon the Queen — attempts which, taking 
place at sporadic intervals over a period of forty 
years, resembled one another in a curious manner. 
All, with a single exception, were perpetrated by 
adolescents, whose motives were apparently not 
murderous, since, save in the case of Maclean, 
none of their pistols was loaded. These unhappy 
youths, who, after buying their cheap weapons, 
stuffed them with gunpowder and paper, and then 
went off, with the certainty of immediate detection, 
to click them in the face of royalty, present a 
strange problem to the psychologist. But, though 
in each case their actions and their purposes 
seemed to be so similar, their fates were remark- 
ably varied. The first of them, Edward Oxford, 
who fired at Victoria within a few months of her 
marriage, was tried for high treason, declared to 
be insane, and sent to an asylum for life. It 
appears, however, that this sentence did not com- 
mend itself to Albert, for when, two years later, 
John Francis committed the same offence, and 
was tried upon the same charge, the Prince pro- 
nounced that there was no insanity in the matter. 



OLD AGE 377 

" The wretched creature," he told his father, was 
"not out of his mind, but a thorough scamp." 
" I hope," he added, " his trial will be conducted 
with the greatest strictness." Apparently it was; 
at any rate, the jury shared the view of the 
Prince, the plea of insanity was set aside, and 
Francis was found guilty of high treason and con- 
demned to death; but, as there was no proof of 
an intent to kill or even to wound, this sentence, 
after a lengthened deliberation between the Home 
Secretary and the Judges, was commuted for one 
of transportation for life. As the law stood, these 
assaults, futile as they were, could only be treated 
as high treason; the discrepancy between the 
actual deed and the tremendous penalties in- 
volved was obviously grotesque; and it was, be- 
sides, clear that a jury, knowing that a verdict of 
guilty implied a sentence of death, would tend to 
the alternative course, and find the prisoner not 
guilty but insane — a conclusion which, on the face 
of it, would have appeared to be the more rea- 
sonable. In 1842, therefore, an Act was passed 
making any attempt to hurt the Queen a mis- 
demeanour, punishable by transportation for seven 
years, or imprisonment, with or without hard 
labour, for a term not exceeding three years — the 
misdemeanant, at the discretion of the Court, " to 



378 QUEEN VICTORIA 

be publicly or privately whipped, as often, and in 
such manner and form, as the Court shall direct, 
not exceeding thrice." ^ The four subsequent at- 
tempts were all dealt with under this new law; 
William Bean, in 1842, was sentenced to eighteen 
months' imprisonment; William Hamilton, in 

1849, was transported for seven years; iand, in 

1850, the same sentence was passed upon Lieu- 
tenant Robert Pate, who struck the Queen on the 
head with his cane in Piccadilly. Pate, alone 
among these delinquents, was of mature years; he 
had held a commission in the Army, dressed him- 
self as a dandy, and was, the Prince declared, 
" manifestly deranged." ^ In 1872 Arthur O'Con- 
nor, a youth of seventeen, fired an unloaded pistol 
at the Queen outside Buckingham Palace; he was 
immediately seized by John Brown, and sentenced 
to one year's imprisonment and twenty strokes of 
the birch rod. It was for his bravery upon this 
occasion that Brown was presented with one of his 
gold medals. In all these cases the jury had re- 
fused to allow the plea of insanity; but Roderick 
Maclean's attempt in 1882 had a different issue. 
On this occasion the pistol was found to have 
been loaded, and the public indignation, empha- 
sised as it was by Victoria's growing popularity, 

1 Martin, I, 88, 137-43. a Ibid., II, 285. 



OLD AGE 379 

was particularly great. Either for this or for 
some other reason the procedure of the last forty 
years was abandoned, and Maclean was tried for 
high treason. The result was what might have 
been expected: the jury brought in a verdict of 
" not guilty, but insane " ; and the prisoner was 
sent to an asylum during Her Majesty's pleasure.^ 
Their verdict, however, produced a remarkable 
consequence. Victoria, who doubtless carried in 
her mind some memory of Albert's disapproval of 
a similar verdict in the case of Oxford, was very 
much annoyed. What did the jury mean, she 
asked, by saying that Maclean was not guilty? It 
was perfectly clear that he was guilty — she had 
seen him fire off the pistol herself. It was in 
vain that Her Majesty's constitutional advisers re- 
minded her of the principle of EngHsh law which 
lays down that no man can be found guilty of a 
crime unless he be proved to have had a criminal 
intention. Victoria was quite unconvinced. " If 
that is the law," she said, " the law must be 
altered " : and altered it was. In 1883 an Act 
was passed changing the form of the verdict in 
cases of insanity, and the confusing anomaly re- 
mains upon the Statute Book to this day.^ 

1 The Times, April 20, 1882. 

2 Letter from Sir Herbert Stephen to The Times, December 15, 1920, 



380 QUEEN VICTORIA 

But it was not only through the feelings — com- 
miserating or indignant — of personal sympathy 
that the Queen and her people were being drawn 
more nearly together ; they were beginning, at last, 
to come to a close and permanent agreement upon 
the conduct of public affairs. Mr. Gladstone's 
second administration (1880-85) was a succession 
of failures, ending in disaster and disgrace; lib- 
eralism fell into discredit with the country, and 
Victoria perceived with joy that her distrust of 
her Ministers was shared by an ever-increasing 
number of her subjects. During the crisis in the 
Sudan, the popular temper was her own. She 
had been among the first to urge the necessity of 
an expedition to Khartoum, and, when the news 
came of the catastrophic death of General Gor- 
don, her voice led the chorus of denunciation which 
raved against the Government. In her rage, she 
despatched a fulminating telegram to Mr. Glad- 
stone, not in the usual cypher, but open ; ^ and her 
letter of condolence to Miss Gordon, in which she 
attacked her Ministers for breach of faith, was 
widely published. It was rumoured that she had 
sent for Lord Hartington, the Secretary of State 
for War, and vehemently upbraided him. " She 

1 Morley, III, 167. 



OLD AGE 381 

rated me," he was reported to have told a friend, 
" as if I'd been a footman." " Why didn't she 
send for the butler?" asked his friend. "Oh," 
was the reply, " the butler generally manages to 
keep out of the way on such occasions." ^ 

But the day came when it was impossible to 
keep out of the way any longer. Mr. Gladstone 
was defeated, and resigned. Victoria, at a final 
interview, received him with her usual amenity, 
but, besides the formalities demanded by the occa- 
sion, the only remark which she made to him of a 
personal nature was to the effect that she sup- 
posed Mr. Gladstone would now require some rest. 
He remembered with regret how, at a similar 
audience in 1874, she had expressed her trust in 
him as a supporter of the throne ; but he noted the 
change without surprise. " Her mind and opin- 
ions," he wrote in his diary afterwards, " have 
since that day been seriously warped." ^ 

Such was Mr. Gladstone's view; but the ma- 
jority of the nation by no means agreed with him; 
and, in the General Election of 1886, they showed 
decisively that Victoria's politics were identical 
with theirs by casting forth the contrivers of 
Home Rule — that abomination of desolation — into 

1 Private information. 2 Morley, III, 347-8. 



382 QUEEN VICTORIA 

outer darkness, and placing Lord Salisbury in 
power. Victoria's satisfaction was profound. A 
flood of new unwonted hopefulness swept over 
her, stimulating her vital spirits with a surpris- 
ing force. Her habit of life was suddenly altered; 
abandoning the long seclusion which Disraeli's per- 
suasions had only momentarily interrupted, she 
threw herself vigorously into a multitude of public 
activities. She appeared at drawing-rooms, at 
concerts, at reviews; she laid foundation-stones; 
she went to Liverpool to open an international 
exhibition, driving through the streets in her open 
carriage in heavy rain amid vast applauding 
crowds. Delighted by the welcome which met her 
everywhere, she warmed to her work. She visited 
Edinburgh, where the ovation of Liverpool was 
repeated and surpassed. In London, she opened 
in high state the Colonial and Indian Exhibition 
at South Kensington. On this occasion the cere- 
monial was particularly magnificent; a blare of 
trumpets announced the approach of Her Maj- 
esty; the "National Anthem" followed; and the 
Queen, seated on a gorgeous throne of hammered 
gold, replied with her own lips to the address that 
was presented to her. Then she rose, and, advanc- 
ing upon the platform with regal port, acknowl- 
edged the acclamations of the great assembly by 



OLD AGE 383 

a succession of curtseys, of elaborate and com- 
manding grace.^ 

Next year was the fiftieth of her reign, and in 
June the splendid anniversary was celebrated in 
solemn pomp. Victoria, surrounded by the high- 
est dignitaries of her realm, escorted by a glitter- 
ing galaxy of kings and princes, drove through the 
crowded enthusiasm of the capital to render thanks 
to God in Westminster Abbey. In that triumph- 
ant hour the last remaining traces of past an- 
tipathies and past disagreements were altogether 
swept away. The Queen was hailed at once as 
the mother of her people and as the embodied 
symbol of their imperial greatness; and she re- 
sponded to the double sentiment with all the 
ardour of her spirit. England and the people of 
England, she knew it, she felt it, were, in some 
wonderful and yet quite simple manner, hers. 
Exultation, affection, gratitude, a profound sense 
of obligation, an unbounded pride — such were her 
emotions; and, colouring and intensifying the rest, 
there was something else. At last, after so long, 
happiness — fragmentary, perhaps, and charged 
with gravity, but true and unmistakable none the 
less — had returned to her. The unaccustomed 
feeling filled and warmed her consciousness. 

iJerrold, Widowhood, 344; private information. 



384 QUEEN VICTORIA 

When, at Buckingham Palace again, the long 
ceremony over, she was asked how she was, " I 
am very tired, but very happy," she said.^ 



Ill 

And so, after the toils and tempests of the day, 
a long evening followed — mild, serene, and lighted 
with a golden glory. For an unexampled at- 
mosphere of success and adoration invested the 
last period of Victoria's life. Her triumph was 
the summary, the crown, of a greater triumph — 
the culminating prosperity of a nation. The 
solid splendour of the decade between Vic- 
toria's two jubilees can hardly be paralleled in 
the annals of England. The sage counsels of 
Lord Salisbury seemed to bring with them not 
only wealth and power, but security; and the 
country settled down, with calm assurance, to the 
enjoyment of an established grandeur. And — it 
was only natural — Victoria settled down too. For 
she was a part of the establishment — an essential 
part as it seemed — a fixture — a magnificent, im- 
movable sideboard in the huge saloon of state. 
Without her the heaped-up banquet of 1890 would 
have lost its distinctive quality — the comfortable 

iLee, 487. 



OLD AGE 385 

order of the substantial unambiguous dishes, with 
their background of weighty glamour, half out of 
sight. 

Her own existence came to harmonise more and 
more with what was around her. Gradually, im- 
perceptibly, Albert receded. It was not that he 
was forgotten — that would have been impossible — 
but that the void created by his absence grew less 
agonising, and even, at last, less obvious. At 
last Victoria found it possible to regret the bad 
weather without immediately reflecting that her 
" dear Albert always said we could not alter it, 
but must leave it as it was "; she could even enjoy 
a good breakfast without considering how " dear 
Albert " would have liked the buttered eggs.^ 
And, as that figure slowly faded, its place was 
taken, inevitably, by Victoria's own. Her being, 
revolving for so many years round an external 
object, now changed its motion and found its 
centre in itself. It had to be so: her domestic 
position, the pressure of her public work, her in- 
domitable sense of duty, made anything else im- 
possible. Her egotism proclaimed its rights. Her 
age increased still further the surrounding defer- 
ence; and her force of character, emerging at 
length in all its plenitude, imposed itself abso- 

1 More Leaves, 23, 29, 



386 QUEEN VICTORIA 

lutely upon its environment by the conscious effort 
of an imperious will. 

Little by little it was noticed that the outward 
vestiges of Albert's posthumous domination grew 
less complete. At Court the stringency of mourn- 
ing was relaxed. As the Queen drove through 
the Park in her open carriage with her High- 
landers behind her, nursery-maids canvassed 
eagerly the growing patch of violet velvet in the 
bonnet with its jet appurtenances on the small 
bowing head. 

It was in her family that Victoria's ascendency 
reached its highest point. All her offspring were 
married; the number of her descendants rapidly 
increased; there were many marriages in the third 
generation; and no fewer than thirty-seven of her 
great-grandchildren were living at the time of her 
death. A picture of the period displays the royal 
family collected together in one of the great rooms 
at Windsor — a crowded company of more than 
fifty persons, with the unperial matriarch in their 
midst. Over them all she ruled with a most potent 
sway. The small concerns of the youngest aroused 
her passionate interest; and the oldest she treated 
as if they were children still. The Prince of 
Wales, in particular, stood in tremendous awe of 
his mother. She had steadily refused to allow him 



OLD AGE 387 

the slightest participation in the business of gov- 
ernment; and he had occupied himself in other 
ways. Nor could it be denied that he enjoyed 
himself — out of her sight; but, in that redoubt- 
able presence, his abounding manhood suffered a 
miserable eclipse. Once, at Osborne, when, owing 
to no fault of his, he was too late for a dinner 
party, he was observed standing behind a pillar 
and, wiping the sweat from his forehead, trying to 
nerve himself to go up to the Queen. When at 
last he did so, she gave him a stiff nod, whereupon 
he vanished immediately behind another pillar, and 
remained there until the party broke up. At the 
time of this incident the Prince of Wales was over 
fifty years of age.^ 

It was inevitable that the Queen's domestic 
activities should occasionally trench upon the do- 
main of high diplomacy; and this was especially 
the case when the interests of her eldest daughter, 
the Crown Princess of Prussia, were at stake. 
The Crown Prince held liberal opinions; he was 
much influenced by his wife; and both were de- 
tested by Bismarck, who declared with scurrilous 
emphasis that the Englishwoman and her mother 
were a menace to the Prussian State. The feud 
was still further intensified when, on the death of 

1 Eckardstein, I, 184(-7. 



3SS QUEEN VICTORIA 

the old Emperor (1888), the Cro"\vii Pruice suc- 
ceeded to the throne. A family entanglement 
brought on a violent crisis. One of the daughters 
of the new Empress had become betrothed to 
Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who had lately 
been ejected from the tlirone of Bulgaria owing 
to the hostihty of the Tsar. Victoria, as well as 
the Empress, highly approved of the match. Of 
the two brothers of Prince Alexander, the elder 
had married another of her grand-daughters, and 
the younger was the husband of her daughter, the 
Princess Beatrice; she was devoted to the hand- 
some young man; and she was dehghted by the 
prospect of the third brother — on the whole the 
handsomest, she thought, of the three — also be- 
coming a member of her family. Unfortunately, 
however, Bismarck was opposed to the scheme. 
He perceived that the marriage would endanger 
the friendship between Germany and Russia, 
which was vital to his foreign poHcy, and he an- 
noimced that it must not take place. A fierce 
struggle between the Empress and the Chancellor 
followed. Victoria, whose hatred of her daugh- 
ter's enemy was unbounded, came over to Char- 
lottenburg to join in the fray. Bismarck, over 
his pipe and lager, snorted out his alarm. The 
Queen of England's object, he said, was clearly 



OLD AGE 389 

political — she wished to estrange Germany and 
Russia — and veiy likely she would have her way. 
" In family matters," he added, '" she is not used 
to contradiction " ; she would " bring the parson 
with her in her travelling bag and the bridegroom 
in her trunk, and the marriage would come off on 
the spot." But the man of blood and iron was not 
to be thwarted so easily, and he asked for a private 
interview with the Queen. The details of their 
conversation are unknown; but it is certain that 
in the course of it Victoria was forced to reaUse 
the meaning of resistance to that formidable per- 
sonage, and that she promised to use all her influ- 
ence to prevent the marriage. The engagement 
was broken off; and in the following year Prince 
Alexander of Battenberg united himself to Frau- 
lein Loisinger, an actress at the court theatre of 
Darmstadt." 

But such painful incidents were rare. Victoria 
was growing very old; with no Albert to guide 
her, with no Beaconsfield to enflame her, she was 
willing enough to abandon the dangerous ques- 
tions of diplomacy to the wisdom of Lord Salis- 
bury, and to concentrate her energies upon objects 
which touched her more nearly and over which she 
could exercise an undisputed control. Her home 

M 1 Grant Bobcrtsoc, i5i-9i Bnsdi, m, 174-88; Lee, 490-2. 



390 QUEEN VICTORIA 

— ^her court — the monuments at Balmoral — ^the 
livestock at Windsor — the organisation of her en- 
gagements — the supervision of the multitudinous 
details of her daily routine — such matters played 
now an even greater part in her existence than 
before. Her life passed in an extraordinary exacti- 
tude. Every moment of her day was mapped out 
beforehand; the succession of her engagements 
was immutably fixed; the dates of her journeys — 
to Osborne, to Balmoral, to the South of France, 
to Windsor, to London — were hardly altered from 
year to year. She demanded from those who sur- 
rounded her a rigid precision in details, and she 
was preternaturally quick in detecting the slight- 
est deviation from the rules which she had laid 
down. Such was the irresistible potency of her 
personality, that anything but the most implicit 
obedience to her wishes was felt to be impossible; 
but sometimes somebody was unpunctual; and un- 
punctuality was one of the most heinous of sins. 
Then her displeasure — her dreadful displeasure — 
became all too visible. At such moments there 
seemed nothing surprising in her having been the 
daughter of a martinet.^ 

But these storms, unnerving as they were 
while they lasted, were quickly over, and they grew 

^Quarterly Review, cxciii, 305-6; 308-10. 



OLD AGE 391 

more and more exceptional. With the return of 
happiness a gentle benignity flowed from the aged 
Queen. Her smile, once so rare a visitant to those 
saddened features, flitted over them with an easy 
alacrity; the blue eyes beamed; the whole face, 
starting suddenly from its pendulous expression- 
lessness, brightened and softened and cast over 
those who watched it an unforgettable charm. 
For in her last years there was a fascination in 
Victoria's amiability which had been lacking even 
from the vivid impulse of her youth. Over all 
who approached her — or very nearly all — she 
threw a peculiar spell. Her grandchildren adored 
her; her ladies waited upon her with a reverential 
love. The honour of serving her obliterated a 
thousand inconveniences — the monotony of a court 
existence, the fatigue of standing, the necessity for 
a superhuman attentiveness to the minutiae of time 
and space. As one did one's wonderful duty one 
could forget that one's legs were aching from the 
infinitude of the passages at Windsor, or that 
one's bare arms were turning blue in the Balmoral 
cold. 

What, above all, seemed to make such service 
delightful was the detailed interest which the 
Queen took in the circumstances of those around 
her. Her absorbing passion for the comfortable 



392 QUEEN VICTORIA 

commonplaces, the small crises, the recurrent sen- 
timentalities, of domestic life constantly demanded 
wider fields for its activity; the sphere of her own 
family, vast as it was, was not enough; she be* 
came the eager confidante of the household affairs 
of her ladies; her sympathies reached out to the 
palace domestics; even the housemaids and scul- 
lions — so it appeared — were the objects of her 
searching inquiries, and of her heartfelt solicitude 
when their lovers were ordered to a foreign sta- 
tion, or their aunts suffered from an attack of 
rheumatism which was more than usually acute/ 
Nevertheless the due distinctions of rank were 
immaculately preserved. The Queen's mere pres- 
ence was enough to ensure that; but, in addition, 
the dominion of court etiquette was paramount. 
For that elaborate code, which had kept Lord 
Melbourne stiff upon the sofa and ranged the 
other guests in silence about the round table ac- 
cording to the order of precedence, was as punc- 
tiliously enforced as ever. Every evening after 
dinner, the hearth-rug, sacred to royalty, loomed 
before the profane in inaccessible glory, or, on 
one or two terrific occasions, actually lured them 
magnetically forward to the very edge of the 

^Quarterly Review, cxciii, 315-6; Miss Ethel Smyth, London 
Mercury, November, 1920; private informAtion, 



OLD AGE 393 

abyss. The Queen, at the fitting moment, moved 
towards her guests; one after the other they were 
led up to her; and, while dualogue followed dua- 
logue in constraint and embarrassment, the rest of 
the assembly stood still, without a word.' Only 
in one particular was the severity of the etiquette 
allowed to lapse. Throughout the greater part of 
the reign the rule that ministers must stand dur- 
ing their audiences with the Queen had been abso- 
lute. When Lord Derby, the Prime Minister, 
had an audience of Her Majesty after a serious 
illness, he mentioned it afterwards, as a proof of 
the royal favour, that the Queen had remarked 
" How sorry she was she could not ask him to be 
seated." Subsequently, Disraeli, after an attack 
of gout and in a moment of extreme expansion 
on the part of Victoria, had been offered a chair; 
but he had thought it wise humbly to decline the 
privilege. In her later years, however, the Queen 
invariably asked Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salis- 
bury to sit down.^ 

Sometimes the solemnity of the evening was 
diversified by a concert, an opera, or even a play. 
One of the most marked indications of Victoria's 
enfranchisement from the thraldom of widowhood 

1 Quarterly Review, cxciii, 325; Miss Ethel Smyth, London Mercury, 
November, 1920. 

2 Buckle, V, 339; Morley, III, 347, 614. 



394j queen victoria 

had been her resumption — after an interval of 
thirty years — of the custom of commanding dra- 
matic companies from London to perform before 
the Court at Windsor. On such occasions her 
spirits rose high. She loved acting; she loved a 
good plot ; above all, she loved a farce. Engrossed 
by everything that passed upon the stage she 
would follow, with childlike innocence, the un- 
winding of the story; or she would assume an 
air of knowing superiority and exclaim in triumph, 
"There! You didn't expect thatj, did you?" 
when the denouement came. Her sense of hu- 
mour was of a vigorous though primitive kind. 
She had been one of the very few persons who 
had always been able to appreciate the Prince 
Consort's jokes; and, when those were cracked 
no more, she could still roar with laughter, in 
the privacy of her household, over some small 
piece of fun — some oddity of an ambassador, or 
some ignorant Minister's faucc pas. When the 
jest grew subtle she was less pleased; but, if it 
approached the confines of the indecorous, the dan- 
ger was serious. To take a liberty called down 
at once Her Majesty's most crushing disapproba- 
tion; and to say something improper was to take 
the greatest liberty of all. Then the royal lips 
sank down at the corners, the royal eyes stared 



OLD AGE 395 

in astonished protrusion, and in fact' the royal 
countenance became inauspicious in the highest 
degree. The transgressor shuddered into silence, 
while the awful " We are not amused " annihilated 
the dinner table. Afterwards, in her private en- 
tourage, the Queen would observe that the person 
in question was, she very much feared, " not dis- 
creet " ; it was a verdict from which there was no 
appeal.^ 

In general, her sesthetic tastes had remained 
unchanged since the days of Mendelssohn, Land- 
seer, and Lablache. She still delighted in the 
roulades of Italian opera; she still demanded a 
high standard in the execution of a pianoforte 
duet. Her views on painting were decided; Sir 
Edwin, she declared, was perfect; she was much 
impressed by Lord Leighton's manners; and she 
profoundly distrusted Mr. Watts. From time 
to time she ordered engraved portraits to be taken 
of members of the royal family; on these occa- 
sions she would have the first proofs submitted to 
her, and, having inspected them with minute par- 
ticularity, she would point out their mistakes to 
the artists, indicating at the same time how they 
might be corrected. The artists invariably dis- 

1 Quarterly Review, vol. 193, pp. 815, 316-7, 324-6, 326; Spinster 
Lady, 268-9; Lee, 504-6. 



396 QUEEN VICTORIA 

covered that Her Majesty's suggestions were of 
the highest value. In literature her interests were 
more restricted. She was devoted to Lord Tenny- 
son; and, as the Prince Consort had admired 
George Eliot, she perused " Middlemarch " : she 
was disappointed. There is reason to believe, 
however, that the romances of another female 
writer, whose popularity among the humbler 
classes of Her Majesty's subjects was at one 
time enormous, secured, no less, the approval of 
Her Majesty. Otherwise she did not read very 
much.^ 

Once, however, the Queen's attention was drawn 
to a publication which it was impossible for her 
to ignore. " The Greville Memoirs," filled with a 
mass of historical information of extraordinary 
importance, but filled also with descriptions, which 
were by no means flattering, of George IV, 
William IV, and other royal persons, was brought 
out by Mr. Reeve. Victoria read the book, and 
was appalled. It was, she declared, a " dreadful 
and really scandalous book," and she could not 
say " how horrified and indignant " she was at 
Greville's " indiscretion, indelicacy, ingratitude 
towards friends, betrayal of confidence and shame- 

1 Quarterly Review, vol. 193, pp. 322-4; Martin, Queen Victoria, 
46-9; private information. 



OLD AGE 397 

ful disloyalty towards his Sovereign." She wrote 
to Disraeli to tell him that in her opinion it was 
'" very important that the book should be severely 
censured and discredited." " The tone in which 
he speaks of royalty," she added, " is unlike any- 
thing one sees in history even, and is most repre- 
hensible." Her anger was directed with almost 
equal vehemence against Mr. Reeve for his hav- 
ing published " such an abominable book," and 
she charged Sir Arthur Helps to convey to him 
her deep displeasure. Mr. Reeve, however, was 
impenitent. When Sir Arthur told him that, in 
the Queen's opinion, " the book degraded royalty," 
he replied: " Not at all; it elevates it by the con- 
trast it offers between the present and the defunct 
state of affairs." But this adroit defence failed 
to make any impression upon Victoria; and Mr. 
Reeve, when he retired from the public service, 
did not receive the knighthood which custom en- 
titled him to expect.^ Perhaps if the Queen had 
known how many caustic comments upon herself 
Mr. Reeve had quietly suppressed in the published 
Memoirs, she would have been almost grateful to 
him; but, in that case, what would she have said 
of Greville? Imagination boggles at the thought. 
As for more modern essays upon the same topic, 

1 Buckle, V, 349-31; Laughton, II, 226. 



398 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Her Majesty, it is to be feared, would have char- 
acterised them as " not discreet." 

But as a rule the leisure hours of that active 
life were occupied with recreations of a less in- 
tangible quality than the study of literature or the 
appreciation of art. Victoria was a woman not 
only of vast property but of innumerable pos- 
sessions. She had inherited an immense quantity 
of furniture, of ornaments, of china, of plate, of 
valuable objects of every kind; her purchases, 
throughout a long life, made a formidable addi- 
tion to these stores; and there flowed in upon her, 
besides, from every quarter of the globe, a con- 
stant stream of gifts. Over this enormous mass 
she exercised an unceasing and minute supervision, 
and the arrangement and the contemplation of it, 
in all its details, filled her with an intimate satis- 
faction. The collecting instinct has its roots in 
the very depths of human nature; and, in the 
case of Victoria, it seemed to owe its force to two 
of her dominating impulses — the intense sense, 
which had always been hers, of her own person- 
ality, and the craving which, growing with the 
years, had become in her old age almost an ob- 
session, for fixity, for solidity, for the setting up 
of palpable barriers against the outrages of change 
and time. When she considered the multitudi- 



OLD AGE 399 

nous objects which belonged to her, or, better still, 
when, choosing out some section of them as the 
fancy took her, she actually savoured the vivid 
richness of their individual qualities, she saw her- 
self deliciously reflected from a million facets, 
felt herself magnified miraculously over a bound- 
less area, and was well pleased. That was just 
as it should be; but then came the dismaying 
thought — everything slips away, crumbles, van- 
ishes; Sevres dinner-services get broken; even 
golden basins go unaccountably astray; even one's 
self, with all the recollections and experiences that 
make up one's being, fluctuates, perishes, dis- 
solves . . . But no! It could not, should not 
be so! There should be no changes and no losses! 
Nothing should ever move — neither the past nor 
the present — and she herself least of all! And so 
the tenacious woman, hoarding her valuables, de- 
creed their immortality with all the resolution of 
her soul. She would not lose one memory or one 
pin. 

She gave orders that nothing should be thrown 
away — and nothing was. There, in drawer after 
drawer, in wardrobe after wardrobe, reposed the 
dresses of seventy years. But not only the dresses 
— ^the furs and the mantles and subsidiary frills 
and the muffs and the parasols and the bonnets — 



400 QUEEN VICTORIA 

all were ranged in chronological order, dated and 
complete. A great cupboard was devoted to the 
dolls; in the china room at Windsor a special 
table held the mugs of her childhood, and her 
children's mugs as well. Mementoes of the past 
surrounded her in serried accumulations. In 
every room the tables were powdered thick with 
the photographs of relatives; their portraits, re- 
veahng them at all ages, covered the walls; their 
figures, in solid marble, rose up from pedestals, 
or gleamed from brackets in the form of gold and 
silver statuettes. The dead, in every shape — in 
miniatures, in porcelain, in enormous life-size oil- 
paintings — were perpetually about her. John 
Brown stood upon her writing-table in solid gold. 
Her favourite horses and dogs, endowed with a 
new durability, crowded round her footsteps. 
Sharp, in silver gilt, dominated the dinner table; 
Boy and Boz lay together among unfading flow- 
ers, in bronze. And it was not enough that each 
particle of the past should be given the stability of 
metal or of marble: the whole collection, in its 
arrangement, no less than its entity, should be 
immutably fixed. There might be additions, but 
there might never be alterations. No chintz might 
change, no carpet, no curtain, be replaced by an- 
other; or, if long use at last made it necessary, 



OLD AGE 401 

the stuffs and the patterns must be so identically 
reproduced that the keenest eye might not detect 
the difference. No new picture could be hung 
upon the walls at Windsor, for those already there 
had been put in their places by Albert, whose de- 
cisions were eternal. So, indeed, were Victoria's. 
To ensure that they should be the aid of the 
camera was called in. Every single article in the 
Queen's possession was photographed from several 
points of view. These photographs were sub- 
mitted to Her Majesty, and when, after careful 
inspection, she had approved of them, they were 
placed in a series of albums, richly bound. Then, 
opposite each photograph, an entry was made, in- 
dicating the number of the article, the number of 
the room in which it was kept, its exact position 
in the room and all its principal characteristics. 
The fate of every object which had undergone 
this process was henceforth irrevocably sealed. 
The whole multitude, once and for all, took up 
its steadfast station. And Victoria, with a gigan- 
tic volume or two of the endless catalogue always 
beside her, to look through, to ponder upon, to 
expatiate over, could feel, with a double content- 
ment, that the transitoriness of this world had 
been arrested by the amplitude of her might.^ 

1 Private Life, 18, 66, 69, 70-1, 151, 182. 



402 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Thus the collection, ever multiplying, ever en- 
croaching upon new fields of consciousness, ever 
rooting itself more firmly in the depths of instinct, 
became one of the dominating influences of that 
strange existence. It was a collection not merely 
of things and of thoughts, but of states of mind 
and ways of living as well. The celebration of 
anniversaries grew to be an important branch of 
it — of birthdays and marriage days and death 
days, each of which demanded its appropriate 
feeling, which, in its turn, must be itself expressed 
in an appropriate outward form. And the form, 
of course — the ceremony of rejoicing or lamenta- 
tion — was stereotyped with the rest: it was part 
of the collection. On a certain day, for instance, 
flowers must be strewn on John Brown's monu- 
ment at Balmoral; and the date of the yearly 
departure for Scotland was fixed by that fact. 
Inevitably it was around the central circumstance 
of death — death, the final witness to human muta- 
bility — that these commemorative cravings clus- 
tered most thickly. Might not even death itself 
be humbled, if one could recall enough? — if one 
asserted, with a sufficiently passionate and reiter- 
ated emphasis, the eternity of love? Accordingly, 
every bed in which Victoria slept had attached to 
it, at the back, on the right-hand side, above the 



OLD AGE 403 

pillow, a photograph of the head and shoulders of 
Albert as he lay dead, surmounted by a wreath of 
immortelles.^ At Balmoral, where memories came 
crowding so closely, the solid signs of memory 
appeared in surprising profusion. Obelisks, pyra- 
mids, tombs, statues, cairns, and seats of inscribed 
granite, proclaimed Victoria's dedication to the 
dead. There, twice a year, on the days that fol- 
lowed her arrival, a solemn pilgrimage of inspec- 
tion and meditation was performed. There, on 
August 26 — ^Albert's birthday — at the foot of the 
bronze statue of him in Highland dress, the 
Queen, her family, her Court, her servants, and 
her tenantry, met together and in silence drank to 
the memory of the dead. In England the tokens 
of remembrance pullulated hardly less. Not a 
day passed without some addition to the multifold 
assemblage — a gold statuette of Ross, the piper — 
a life-sized marble group of Victoria and Albert, 
in medieval costume, inscribed upon the base with 
the words: "Allured to brighter worlds and led 
the way " — a granite slab in the shrubbery at 
Osborne, informing the visitor of "Waldmann: 
the very favourite little dachshund of Queen Vic- 
toria; who brought him from Baden, April 1872; 
died, July 11, 1881."' 

I Private Life, 19. a/fiid., 207, 212. 



404 QUEEN VICTORIA 

At Frogmore, the great mausoleum, perpetually 
enriched, was visited almost daily by the Queen 
when the Court was at Windsor.^ But there was 
another, a more secret and a hardly less holy 
shrine. The suite of rooms which Albert had 
, occupied in the Castle was kept for ever shut away 
from the eyes of any save the most privileged. 
Within those precincts everything remained as it 
had been at the Prince's death; but the mysterious 
preoccupation of Victoria had commanded that 
her husband's clothing should be laid afresh, each 
evening, upon the bed, and that, each evening, the 
water should be set ready in the basin, as if he 
were still alive; and this incredible rite was per- 
formed with scrupulous regularity for nearly 
forty years.^ 

Such was the inner worship; and still the flesh 
obeyed the spirit; still the daily hours of labour 
proclaimed Victoria's consecration to duty and to 
the ideal of the dead. Yet, with the years, the 
sense of self-sacrifice faded; the natural energies 
of that ardent being discharged themselves with 
satisfaction into the channel of public work; the 
love of business which, from her girlhood, had been 
strong within her, reasserted itself in all its vigour, 
and, in her old age, to have been cut off from her 

1 Private Life, 233. - Private information. 



OLD AGE 406 

papers and her boxes would have been, not a re- 
lief, but an agony to Victoria. Thus, though 
toiling Ministers might sigh and suffer, the whole 
process of government continued, till the very end, 
to pass before her. Nor was that all; ancient 
precedent had made the validity of an enormous 
number of official transactions dependent upon the 
application of the royal sign-manual; and a great 
proportion of the Queen's working hours was 
spent in this mechanical task. Nor did she show 
any desire to diminish it. On the contrary, she 
voluntarily resumed the duty of signing commis- 
sions in the army, from which she had been set 
free by Act of Parliament, and from which, dur- 
ing the years of middle life, she had abstained. In 
no case would she countenance the proposal that 
she should use a stamp. But, at last, when the 
increasing pressure of business made the delays of 
the antiquated system intolerable, she consented 
that, for certain classes of documents, her oral 
sanction should be sufficient. Each paper was 
read aloud to her, and she said at the end " Ap- 
proved." Often, for hours at a time, she would 
sit, with Albert's bust in front of her, while the 
word " Approved " issued at intervals from her 
lips. The word came forth with a majestic sono- 
rity; for her voice now — ^how changed from the 



406 QUEEN VICTORIA 

silvery treble of her girlhood! — was a contralto, 
full and strong/ 

IV 

The final years were years of apotheosis. In the 
dazzled imagination of her subjects Victoria soared 
aloft towards the regions of divinity through a 
nimbus of purest glory. Criticism fell dumb; de- 
ficiencies which, twenty years earlier, would have 
been universally admitted, were now as univer- 
sally ignored. That the nation's idol was a very 
incomplete representative of the nation was a cir- 
cumstance that was hardly noticed, and yet it was 
conspicuously true. For the vast changes which, 
out of the England of 1837, had produced the 
England of 1897, seemed scarcely to have touched 
the Queen. The immense industrial development 
of the period, the significance of which had been 
so thoroughly understood by Albert, meant little 
indeed to Victoria. The amazing scientific move- 
ment, which Albert had appreciated no less, left 
Victoria perfectly cold. Her conception of the 
universe, and of man's place in it, and of the 
stupendous problems of nature and philosophy re- 
mained, throughout her life, entirely unchanged. 
Her religion was the religion which she had learnt 

iLee, 514-5; Crawford, 362-3. 



OLD AGE 407 

from the Baroness Lehzen and the Duchess of 
Kent. Here, too, it might have been supposed 
that Albert's views might have influenced her. 
For Albert, in matters of religion, was advanced. 
Disbelieving altogether in evil spirits, he had had 
his doubts about the miracle of the Gaderene 
Swine." Stockmar, even, had thrown out, in a 
remarkable memorandum on the education of the 
Prince of Wales, the suggestion that while the 
child " must unquestionably be brought up in the 
creed of the Church of England," it might never- 
theless be in accordance with the spirit of the 
times to exclude from his religious training the 
inculcation of a belief in " the supernatural doc- 
trines of Christianity."^ This, however, would 
have been going too far; and all the royal children 
were brought up in complete orthodoxy. Any- 
thing else would have grieved Victoria, though her 
own conceptions of the orthodox were not very 
precise. But her nature, in which imagination 
and subtlety held so small a place, made her in- 
stinctively recoil from the intricate ecstasies of 
High Anghcanism; and she seemed to feel most at 
home in the simple faith of the Presbyterian 
Church of Scotland.^ This was what might have 

1 Wilberforce, Samuel, II, 275. 

2 Martin, II, 185-7. 

^Quarterly Review, vol, 193, pp. 319-20. 



408 QUEEN VICTORIA 

been expected; for Lehzen was the daughter of a 
Lutheran pastor, and the Lutherans and the Pres- 
byterians have much in common. For many years 
Dr. Norman Macleod, an innocent Scotch min- 
ister, was her principal spiritual adviser; and, 
when he was taken from her, she drew much com- 
fort from quiet chats about life and death with the 
cottagers at Balmoral/ Her piety, absolutely 
genuine, found what it wanted in the sober ex- 
hortations of old John Grant and the devout saws 
of Mrs. P. Farquharson. They possessed the 
qualities, which, as a child of fourteen, she had so 
sincerely admired in the Bishop of Chester's " Ex- 
position of the Gospel of St. Matthew " ; they 
were " just plain and comprehensible and full of 
truth and good feeling." The Queen, who gave 
her name to the Age of Mill and of Darwin, 
never got any further than that. 

From the social movements of her time Victoria 
was equally remote. Towards the smallest no less 
than towards the greatest changes she remained 
inflexible. During her youth and middle age 
smoking had been forbidden in polite society, and 
so long as she lived she would not withdraw her 
anathema against it. Kings might protest ; bishops 
and ambassadors, invited to Windsor, might be re- 

1 Crawford, S49. 



OLD AGE 409 

duced, in the privacy of their bedrooms, to lie 
full-length upon the floor and smoke up the chim- 
ney — the interdict continued/ It might have been 
supposed that a female sovereign would have lent 
her countenance to one of the most vital of all the 
reforms to which her epoch gave birth — the eman- 
cipation of women — but, on the contrary, the mere 
mention of such a proposal sent the blood rush- 
ing to her head. In 1870, her eye having fallen 
upon the report of a meeting in favour of Wom- 
en's Suffrage, she wrote to Mr. Martin in royal 
rage — " The Queen is most anxious to enlist 
everyone who can speak or write to join in check- 
ing this mad, wicked folly of ' Woirian's Rights,' 
with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor 
feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of 

womanly feeling and propriety. Lady ought 

to get a good whipping. It is a subject which 
makes the Queen so furious that she cannot con- 
tain herself. God created men and women differ- 
ent — then let them remain each in their own posi- 
tion. Tennyson has some beautiful lines on the 
difference of men and women in ' The Princess.* 
Woman would become the most hateful, heart- 
less, and disgusting of human beings were she 
allowed to unsex herself; and where would be the 

1 Eckardstein, I, 177. 



410 QUEENVICTORIA 

protection which man was intended to give the 
weaker sex? The Queen is sure that Mrs. Martin 
agrees with her." ^ The argument was irrefutable ; 
Mrs. Martin agreed; and yet the canker spread. 

In another direction Victoria's comprehension 
of the spirit of her age has been constantly as- 
serted. It was for long the custom for courtly 
historians and polite politicians to compliment the 
Queen upon the correctness of her attitude towards 
the Constitution. But such praises seem hardly 
to be justified by the facts. In her later years 
Victoria more than once alluded with regret to her 
conduct during the Bedchamber crisis, and let it 
be understood that she had grown wiser since.^ 
Yet in truth it is difficult to trace any fundamen- 
tal change either in her theory or her practice in 
constitutional matters throughout her life. The 
same despotic and personal spirit which led her 
to break off the negotiations with Peel is equally 
visible in her animosity towards Palmerston, in 
her threats of abdication to Disraeli, and in her 
desire to prosecute the Duke of Westminster for 
attending a meeting upon Bulgarian atrocities. 
/The complex and delicate principles of the Con- 
stitution cannot be said to have come within the 



1 Martin, Queen Victoria, 69-70. 

2 Girlhood, II, 142. 



OLD AGE 411 

compass of her mental faculties; and in the actual 
developments which it underwent during her reign 
she played a passive part. From 1840 to 1861 
the power of the Crown steadily increased in Eng- 
land ; from 1861 to 1901 it steadily declined. The 
first process was due to the influence of the Prince 
Consort, the second to that of a series of great 
Ministers. During the first Victoria was in effect 
a mere accessory; during the second the threads 
of power, which Albert had so laboriously collected, 
inevitably fell from her hands into the vigor- 
ous grasp of Mr. Gladstone, Lord Beaconsfield, 
and Lord Salisbury. Perhaps, absorbed as she 
was in routine, and difficult as she found it to dis- 
tinguish at all clearly between the trivial and the 
essential, she was only dimly aware of what was 
happening. Yet, at the end of her reign, the 
Crown was weaker than at any other time in Eng- 
lish history. Paradoxically enough, Victoria re- 
ceived the highest eulogiums for assenting to a 
political evolution, which, had she completely real- 
ised its import, would have filled her with supreme 
displeasure. 

Nevertheless it must not be supposed that she 
was a second George III. Her desire to impose 
her will, vehement as it was, and unlimited by any 
principle, was yet checked by a certain shrewd- 



412 QUEEN VICTORIA 

ness. She might oppose her Ministers with ex- 
traordinary violence ; she might remain utterly im- 
pervious to arguments and supplications; the 
pertinacity of her resolution might seem to be 
unconquerable ; but, at the very last moment of all, 
her obstinacy would give way. Her innate respect 
and capacity for business, and perhaps, too, the 
memory of Albert's scrupulous avoidance of ex- 
treme courses, prevented her from ever entering 
an impasse. By instinct she understood when the 
facts were too much for her, and to them she in- 
variably yielded. After all, what else could 
she do? 

But if, in all these ways, the Queen and her 
epoch were profoundly separated, the points of 
contact between them also were not few. Vic- 
toria understood very well the meaning and the 
attractions of power and property, and in such 
learning the English nation, too, had grown to be 
more and more proficient. During the last fifteen 
years of the reign — for the short Liberal Adminis- 
tration of 1892 was a mere interlude — imperialism 
was the dominant creed of the country. It was 
Victoria's as well. In this direction, if in no 
other, she had allowed her mind to develop. 
Under Disraeli's tutelage the British Dominions 
over the seas had come to mean much more to 



OLD AGE 413 

her than ever before, and, in particular, she had 
grown enamoured of the East. The thought of 
India fascinated her; she set to, and learnt a little 
Hindustani; she engaged some Indian servants, 
who became her inseparable attendants, and one 
of whom, Munshi Abdul Karim, eventually almost 
succeeded to the position which had once been 
John Brown's/ At the same time, the imperialist 
temper of the nation invested her office with a new 
significance exactly harmonising with her own 
inmost proclivities. The English polity was in the 
main a common-sense structure; but there was al- 
ways a corner in it where common-sense could not 
enter — where, somehow or other, the ordinary 
measurements were not applicable and the ordi- 
nary rules did not apply. So our ancestors had 
laid it down, giving scope, in their wisdom, to that 
mystical element which, as it seems, can never 
quite be eradicated from the affairs of men. Natu- 
rally it was in the Crown that the mysticism of the 
English polity was concentrated — the Crown, with 
its venerable antiquity, its sacred associations, its 
imposing spectacular array. But, for nearly two 
centuries, common-sense had been predominant in 
the great building, and the little, unexplored, inex- 
plicable corner had attracted small attention. 

iLee, 485; private information. 



414 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Then, with the rise of imperialism, there was a 
change. For imperiahsm is a faith as well as a 
business; as it grew, the mysticism in English 
public life grew with it ; and simultaneously a new 
importance began to attach to the Crown. The 
need for a symbol — a symbol of England's might, 
of England's worth, of England's extraordinary 
and mysterious destiny — became felt more ur- 
gently than ever before. The Crown was that 
symbol: and the Crown rested upon the head of 
Victoria. Thus it happened that while by the 
end of the reign the power of the sovereign had 
appreciably diminished, the prestige of the sov- 
ereign had enormously grown. 

Yet this prestige was not merely the outcome of 
public changes; it was an intensely personal mat- 
ter, too. Victoria was the Queen of England, 
the Empress of India, the quintessential pivot 
round which the whole magnificent machine was 
revolving — but how much more besides! For one 
thing, she was of a great age — an almost indis- 
pensable qualification for popularity in England. 
She had given proof of one of the most admired 
characteristics of the race — persistent vitality. 
She had reigned for sixty years, and she was not 
out. And then, she was a character. The out- 
lines of her nature were firmly drawn, and, even 



OLD AGE 415 

through the mists which envelop royalty, clearly 
visible. In the popular imagination her familiar 
figure filled, with satisfying ease, a distinct and 
memorable place. It was, besides, the kind of , 
figure which naturally called forth the admiring 
sympathy of the great majority of the nation. 
Goodness they prized above every other human 
quality; and Victoria, who had said that she 
would be good at the age of twelve, had kept 
her word. Duty, conscience, morality — yes! in the 
light of those high beacons the Queen had always 
lived. She had passed her days in work and not 
in pleasure — m public responsibilities and family 
cares. The standard of solid virtue which had 
been set up so long ago amid the domestic happi- 
ness of Osborne had never been lowered for an 
instant. For more than half a century no di- 
vorced lady had approached the precincts of the 
Court. Victoria, indeed, in her enthusiasm for 
wifely fidelity, had laid down a still stricter ordi- 
nance: she frowned severely upon any widow 
who married again.^ Considering that she herself - 
,was the offspring of a widow's second marriage, 
this prohibition might be regarded as an eccen- 
tricity; but, no doubt, it was an eccentricity on 
the right side. The middle classes, firm in the 

iLee, 555. 



416 QUEEN VICTORIA 

triple brass of their respectability, rejoiced with a 
special joy over the most respectable of Queens. 
They almost claimed her, indeed, as one of them- 
selves; but this would have been an exaggeration. 
For, though many of her characteristics were most 
often found among the middle classes, in other 
respects — in her manners, for instance — Victoria 
was decidedly aristocratic. And, in one important 
particular, she was neither aristocratic nor mid- 
dle-class: her attitude toward herself was simply 
regal. 

Such qualities were obvious and important; but, 
in the impact of a personality, it is something 
deeper, something fundamental and common to all 
its qualities, that really tells. In Victoria, it is 
easy to discern the nature of this underlying ele- 
ment: it was a peculiar sincerity. Her truthful- 
ness, her single-mindedness, the vividness of her*" 
emotions and her unrestrained expression of them, 
were the varied forms which this central char- 
acteristic assumed. It was her sincerity which 
gave her at once her impressiveness, her charm, 
and her absurdity. She moved through life with 
the imposing certitude of one to whom conceal- 
ment was impossible— either towards her sur- 
roundings or towards herself. There she was, all 
of her — the Queen of England, complete and ob- 



OLD AGE 417 

vious; the world might take her or leave her; she 
had nothing more to show, or to explain, or to 
modify; and, with her peerless carriage, she swept 
along her path. And not only was concealment 
out of the question; reticence, reserve, even dig- 
nity itself, as it sometimes seemed, might be very 
well dispensed with. As Lady Lyttelton said: 
" There is a transparency in her truth that is 
very striking — not a shade of exaggeration in de- 
scribing feelings or facts; like very few other 
people I ever knew. Many may be as true, but I 
think it goes often along with some reserve. She 
talks all out; just as it is, no more and no less."* 
She talked all out; and she wrote all out, too. 
Her letters, in the surprising jet of their expres- 
sion, remind one of a turned-on tap. What is 
within pours forth in an immediate, spontaneous 
rjush. Her utterly unliterary style has at least the 
merit ' of being a vehicle exactly suited to her 
thoughts and feelings; and even the platitude of 
her phraseology carries with it a curiously per- 
sonal flavour. Undoubtedly it was through her 
writings that she touched the heart of the public. 
Not only in her " Highland Journals," where 
the mild chronicle of her private proceedings was 
laid bare without a trace either of affectation or 

1 Lyttelton, 331. 



418 QUEEN VICTORIA 

of embarrassment, but also in those remarkable 
messages to the nation which, from time to time, 
she published in the newspapers, her people found 
her very close to them indeed. They felt in- 
stinctively Victoria's irresistible sincerity, and 
they responded. And in truth it was an endearing 
trait. 

The personality and the position, too — the won- 
derful combination of them — that, perhaps, was 
what was finally fascinating in the case. The little 
old lady, with her white hair and her plain mourn- 
ing clothes, in her wheeled chair or her donkey- 
carriage — one saw her so; and then — close be- 
hind — with their immediate suggestion of singu- 
larity, of mystery, and of power — the Indian 
servants. That was the familiar vision, and it was 
admirable; but, at chosen moments, it was right 
that the widow of Windsor should step forth 
apparent Queen. The last and the most glorious 
of such occasions was the Jubilee of 1897. Then, 
as the splendid procession passed along, escorting 
Victoria through the thronged re-echoing streets 
of London on her progress of thanksgiving to St. 
Paul's Cathedral, the greatness of her realm and 
the adoration of her subjects blazed out together. 
The tears welled to her eyes, and, while the multi- 
tude roared round her, " How kind they are to 



THE END 419 

me! How kind they are! " she repeated over and 
over again.^ That night her message flew over the 
Empire : " From my heart I thank my beloved 
people. May God bless them!" The long jour- 
ney was nearly done. But the traveller, who had 
come so far, and through such strange experi- 
ences, moved on with the old unfaltering step. 
The girl, the wife, the aged woman, were the 
same: vitality, conscientiousness, pride, and sim- 
plicity were hers to the latest hour. 

1 Quarterly Review, vol. 193, p. 310. 



CHAPTER X 

THE END 

The evening had been golden; but, after all, the 
day was to close in cloud and tempest. Imperial 
needs, imperial ambitions, involved the country in 
the South African War. There were checks, re- 
verses, bloody disasters; for a moment the nation 
was shaken, and the public distresses were felt 
with intimate solicitude by the Queen. But her 
spirit was high, and neither her courage nor her 
confidence wavered for a moment. Throwing her- 
self heart and soul into the struggle, she laboured 
with redoubled vigour, interested herself in every 
detail of the hostilities, and sought by every means 
in her power to render service to the national 
cause. In April 1900, when she was in her eighty- 
first year, she made the extraordinary decision to 
abandon her annual visit to the South of France, 
and to go instead to Ireland, which had provided 
a particularly large number of recruits to the 
armies in the field. She stayed for three weeks in 
Dublin, driving through the streets, in spite of the 
warnings of her advisers, without an armed escort; 

420 



T H E E N D 421 

and the visit was a complete success. But, in the 
course of it, she began, for the first time, to show 
signs of the fatigue of age.^ 

For the long strain and the unceasing anxiety, 
brought by the war, made themselves felt at last. 
Endowed by nature with a robust constitution, 
Victoria, though in periods of depression she had 
sometimes supposed herself an invalid, had in 
reality throughout her life enjoyed remarkably 
good health. In her old age, she had suffered 
from a rheumatic stiffness of the joints, which had 
necessitated the use of a stick, and, eventually, a 
wheeled chair; but no other ailments attacked her, 
until, in 1898, her eyesight began to be affected by 
incipient cataract. After that, she found read- 
ing more and more difficult, though she could still 
sign her name, and even, with some difficulty, 
write letters. In the summer of 1900, however, 
more serious symptoms appeared. Her memory, 
in whose strength and precision she had so long 
prided herself, now sometimes deserted her; there 
was a tendency towards aphasia; and, while no 
specific disease declared itself, by the autumn there 
were unmistakable signs of a general physical de- 
cay. Yet, even in these last months, the strain 
of iron held firm. The daily work continued; 

1 Quarterly Review, vol. 193, pp. 318, 336-7. 



422 QUEEN VICTORIA 

nay, it actually increased; for the Queen, with an 
astonishing pertinacity, insisted upon communicat- 
ing personally with an ever-growing multitude of 
men and women who had suffered through the 
war.^ 

By the end of the year the last remains of her 
ebbing strength had almost deserted her; and 
through the early days of the opening century it 
was clear that her dwindling forces were only kept 
together by an effort of will. On January 14, 
she had at Osborne an hour's interview with Lord 
Roberts, who had returned victorious from South 
Africa a few days before. She inquired with 
acute anxiety into all the details of the war; she 
appeared to sustain the exertion successfully; but, 
when the audience was over, there was a collapse. 
On the following day her medical attendants 
recognised that her state was hopeless; and yet, 
for two days more, the indomitable spirit fought 
on; for two days more she discharged the duties of 
a Queen of England. But after that there was 
an end of working; and then, and not till then, 
did the last optimism of those about her break 
down. The brain was failing, and life was gently 
slipping away. Her family gathered round her; 
for a little more she lingered, speechless and ap- 

1 Lee, 636-7 ; private information. 



T H E E N D 423 

parently insensible; and, on January 22, 1901, 
she died/ 

When, two days previously, the news of the 
approaching end had been made public, astonished 
grief had swept over the country. It appeared 
as if some monstrous reversal of the course of 
nature was about to take place. The vast ma- 
jority of her subjects had never known a time 
when Queen Victoria had not been reigning over 
them. She had become an indissoluble part of 
their whole scheme of things, and that they were 
about to lose her appeared a scarcely possible 
thought. She herself, as she lay bhnd and silent, 
seemed to those who watched her to be divested of 
all thinking — to have glided already, unawares, 
into oblivion. Yet, perhaps, in the secret cham- 
bers of consciousness, she had her thoughts, too. 
Perhaps her fading mind called up once more the 
shadows of the past to float before it, and re- 
traced, for the last time, the vanished visions of 
that long history — passing back and back, through 
the cloud of years, to older and ever older memo- 
ries — ^to the spring woods at Osborne, so full 
of primroses for Lord Beaconsfield — to Lord 
, Palmerston's queer clothes and high demeanour, 
and Albert's face under the green lamp, and 

I Lee, 637-9; Quarterly Bevuw, cxciii, 809. 



424 QUEEN VICTORIA 

Albert's first stag at Balmoral, and Albert in his 
blue and silver uniform, and the Baron coming in 
through a doorway, and Lord M. dreaming at 
Windsor with the rooks cawing in the elm-trees, 
and the Archbishop of Canterbury on his knees 
in the dawn, and the old King's turkey-cock 
ejaculations, and Uncle Leopold's soft voice at 
Claremont, and Lehzen with the globes, and her 
mother's feathers sweeping down towards her, and 
a great old repeater-watch of her father's in its 
tortoise-shell case, and a yellow rug, and some 
friendly flounces of sprigged muslin, and the 
trees and the grass at Kensington. 



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INDEX 



Aberdeen, Lord, Prime Minister, 
240, 245, 276. 

Adelaide, Queen, 69, 147. 

Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg- 
Gotha, 51-53, 129 et seq.; ap- 
pointed Regent, 161; biogra- 
phies of, 313-318; birth and 
parentage, 134; growing power 
and influence, 167 et seq.; ig- 
nored by Palmerston, 207-208; 
last illness and death, 292- 
296; last years of, 253 et seq.; 
marriage to Queen Victoria, 
152; memorials and monu- 
ments, 318-326; opposes Palm- 
erston's policy, 220-235; plans 
"Great Exhibition," 196 et 
seq.; Private Secretary to the 
Queen, 187-188; references to, 
385, 386, 402-406; remarkable 
triumph of, 202; reorganiza- 
tion of Royal household, 181- 
187; restored to popular fa- 
vor, 252; tributes by British 
statesmen, 298-300; unpopular 
with upper classes, 204-206; 
violent outburst against, 241 
et seq; visits to London, 51- 
63; 132-134. 

Albert dock, opening of, 196. 

Albert Memorial Hall, 320, 328. 

Aldershot, 270, 352. 

Alexander, Prince, 49. 

Alexander, Prince of Battenberg, 
383-389. 

America, civil war in, 292-293. 

Amorbach, 23, 30. 

Anglo-Russian War, 359. 

Anson, George, 148, 155, 166. 

Arnold, Dr., 40. 

Augustus, Prince, 1, 2, 50, 51. 

Austria, 235-237, 311. 



Balmoral Castle, 264-265, 277, 
305, 357, 369, 390-391, 408; 



431 



life of Royal family at de- 
scribed, 265-268. 

Balmoral House, 262. 

Beaconsfield, Earl, see Disraeli. 

Beaconsfield, Lady, 344. 

Beards for British sailors, 333- 
334. 

Bedford, Duke of, (footnote) 96. 

Belgium, 21, 46, 106, 108. 

Bismarck, 274, 309, 387, 388. 

Brandon, Lady, 89. 

Bronte, Charlotte, quoted, 176. 

Brown, John, 371-375, 413. 

Brougham, 2, 32-33. 

Buckingham Palace, 75, 77, 79, 
111, 173, 181-185, 378, 383. 

Buggins, Lady Cecilia, 9. 

Cadiz, Duke of, 213, 217. 
Cambridge, Duke of, 8-9. 
Canada, 10, 94-95, 226. 
Canterbury, Archbishop of, 41, 

67, 68, 100, 201. 
Carleton House, 35. 
Caroline, Lady, 84-85, 89. 
Cavour, 276. 
Charlotte, Princess, 1-6, 12, 21, 

77, 176. 
Chartism, 338. 
Chester, Dean of, 44. 
Claremont, 4, 5, 7, 45, 67. 
Clarence, Duchess of, 25, 30, 

31. 
Clarence, Duke of, 8-9, 13, 15, 

16; accession to the throne, 

38; marriage of, 18. 
Clarendon, Lord, 228, 240, 245, 

298, 330. 
Clarke, Sir James, 112, 113, 149, 

151, 294. 
"Coburg Trust," 214. 
Colonial and Indian Exposition, 

382. 
Congress of Berlin, 364. 
Congress of Vienna, 3, 327. 



4.32 



INDEX 



Conroy, Sir John, 55-56, 61, 75, 

111, 124. 
Conyngham, Lord, 64, 68. 
Corn Laws, repeal of, 191. 
Creevey, 13, 14, 17, 22, 91. 
Crimean War, 246, 252, 268, 

360. 
Crisis over conflict between Kus- 

sia and Turkey, 359-364. 
Crystal Palace, 202. See also 

Great Exhibition. 
Cumberland, Duke of, 8-9, 18, 32, 

33, 39; king of Hanover, 

129. 

Denmark, 309-312. 

Derby, Lord, 305, 327, 350, 357, 
362, 364, 393. 

Dilke, Sir Charles, 340-341. 

Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, 
327 et seq.; 382, 393, 397, 411: 
death of, 366; diplomatic tri- 
umph at Congress of Berlin, 
364; Prime Minister, 343 et 
seq.; tribute to Prince Albert, 
299. 

Durham, Lord, 45. 

Eastern Question, Prince Albert's 

comments on, 269. 
East India Company, 197. 
Edinburgh, Duke of, 356. 
Edward, Duke of Kent, 3, 8, 10- 

19, 21-29. 
Eliot, George, 396. 
Emperor of Russia, 2. 
English Constitution, 300. 
Ernest, Prince, 51-53, 134, 160. 
Ernst, Prince, 49. 
Eugenie, Empress, 272-273, 375. 

Feodora, daughter of Princess of 

Saxe-Coburg, 23, 36, 46, 69, 

255. 
Ferdinand, Prince of Saxe-Co- 

burg, 50-51, 79. 
France, 24, 226-227, 231. 
Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg- 

Saalfeld, 19-20. 
Frogmore Mausoleum, 318, 404. 

Garibaldi, 276. 

General Election of 1886, 381. 

George I, 300. 



George III, 7, 186, 249, 411; 
daughters of, 10; death of, 29; 
sons of, 7-10. 

George IV, 32, 34, 37, 38, 46, 
205, 396. 

Germany, 24, 142, 145, 177, 219, 
221, 226, 277, 388. 

Gibraltar, 10. 

Gladstone, Prime Minister, 327 
et seq., 380-382, 393, 411. 

Gloucester, Duchess of, 37. 

Gordon, General, death of, 380. 

Granville, Lord, Foreign Min- 
ister, 239-240, 310, 313, 314. 

"Great Exhibition," (Crystal 
Palace), character of struc- 
ture, 199; designed by Joseph 
Paxton, 198; planned by 
Prince Albert, 196-197; public 
opposition to, 198-199 ; success- 
ful opening and operation, 199- 
203. 

Gregory XVI, Pope, 142. 

Greville, Clerk of Privy Council, 
71, 97, 98, 397. 

Greville Memoirs, 396. 

Grey, General, 315. 

Grey, Lord, 78, 83, 207, 300. 
' Guizot, Prime Minister of 
France, 212, 213, 216. 

Hartington, Lord, 380. 
Hastings, Lady Flora, 62, 111- 

112, 125, 149. 
Hawarden, 331. 
Haynau, General, 235-236. 
Helps, Sir Arthur, 315, 317, 397. 
Home Rule, 381. 
House of Coburg, 79. 
House of Commons, 18, 163, 232, 

249, 328, 331, 332, 341, 349. 
House of Brunswick, 280. 
House of Lords, 18, 312, 335. 
House of Wettin, 19. 

Imperialism, 357, 412, 414. 
Irish Church, 331-333. 
Irish Reforms, 332. 
Isabella, Queen of Spain, 211 et 
seq. 

Jordan, Mrs. 8-9. 
Jubilee Celebration, 383. See 
also Victoria. 



INDEX 



433 



Karim, Munshi Abdul, 413. 
Kara, 269. 
Khartoum, 380. 

Kensington, 24, 30, 33, 35, 36, 
57, 59, 61, 64, 65, 68, 75, 323. 
King of Prussia, 174. 
King of Saxony, 174. 
Kossuth, 237. 

Lamb, William, Viscount Mel- 
bourne, see Melbourne. 

Lancaster, Duchy of, 92. 

Lehzen, Baroness, governess of 
Victoria, 34, 36, 43, 46-48, 61, 
71, 76, 77, 82, 89, 93, 110, 124, 
148, 152, 154, 158, 167, 168, 
407. 

Leiningen, Prince of, 20. 

Leiningen, Princess of, 20-21 ; 
marriage to Duke of Kent, 21. 

Leopold, Prince, 212, 214-216. 

Leopold, Prince of Saxe-Coburg, 
2-7, 16, 19, 29, 31; King of 
Belgium, 45, 57-59, 66-67, 79, 
81, 93, 101, 103-110, 129, 134, 
139, 141, 143, 147, 164, 172, 
175, 177, 214, 216, 367. 

Liberal Administration, 412. 

Liberal defeat, 1874, 343. 

Liberals returned to power, 1880, 
365. 

Louis Philippe, 174, 175, 212, 
214-218, 270. 

Lyttelton, Lady, 172; quoted, 
417. 

Maclean Trial, the, 379. 

Macleod, Dr. Norman, 408. 

Maria II, Queen of Portugal, 79. 

Martin, Theodore, 314-316. 

Melbourne, Lord, Prime Minister, 
69, 82 et seq.; 152, 161, 163, 
165-167, 171, 179, 190-193, 271. 
328, 392. 

Metternich, Prince, 12. 

Montpensier, Due de, 213-217. 

Murray, Lady Augusta, 9. 

Napoleon, III, 238, 270-272, 338, 

351. 
National Museum, 202. 
Nicholas, Tsar of Russia, 174. 
Nield, John, 340. 
Northumberland, Duchess of, 44. 



Norton, Mrs. 89. 

O'Connell, 32 

Orange, Prince of, 2, 57. 

Osborne, purchased for Royal 
residence, 193, 194, 209, 220, 
260, 288, 305, 333, 353, 368, 
387, 390, 415, 422. 

Owen, Robert, 11, 12, 27. 

Palmerston, Lord, 78^ 79, ,S2, 
106; Foreign Minister, 206 et 
seq., 245; Prime Minister, 252? 
270, 275-277, 299, 304^ 308, 
309, 312, 321, 322, 327. 

Parliament, 19, 38, 122, 173, 334, 
338, 339, 340, 352. 

Parliament, Houses of, rebuild- 
ing of, 180-181. 

Paxton, Joseph, designer of Crys- 
tal Palace, 198, 200. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 71, 78, 116, 117, 
121-123, 147, 164, 166, 180, 
188, 189, 192, 193, 198, 223, 
231, 327. 

Piccadilly, 327. . 

Portugal, quarrel over, 218. 

Prince Consort, see Albert. 

Princess Royal of Great Bi'itain, 
277-279. 

Princess Royal of Prussia, 8. 

Prussia, 308, 309; Crown Prin- 
cess of, 387-389. 

Public Worship Regulation Bill, 
349. 

Queen's Highland Journal, 374. 

" Red Room Wine," 186. 
Reform Bill, 39, 86, 114, 246, 

342. 
Republicanism in England, 338. 
Roberts, Lord, 422. 
Rosenau, 136, 177, 194, 288, 

295. 
Royal Family, the, 193, 257, 367, 

375, 386. 
Royal Title, change of, 358-359. 
Russell, Lord John, 72, 192, 207, 

226-229, 230, 233, 235, 237-239, 

249, 252, 276, 293, 304, 327. 
Russia, 231, 234; clash with, 

359-364. 
Rutland, Duchess of, 38. 



434< 



INDEX 



St. Laurent, Madame, 14-16, 18, 
19. 

Salisbury, Bishop of, 2. 

Salisbury, Lord, 357, 364, 384, 
389, 393, 411. 

Saxe-Coburg, Duke of, 19, 51; 
Duchy of, 19-20; Princess of, 
16, 18. 

Schleswig-Holstein Question, 229, 
234, 308-313. 

Scott, Gilbert, 320-326. 

Sebastopol, fall of, 274-275. 

Sefton, Lord, 17. 

Seven Weeks War, 311. 

Sibthorpe, Colonel, 199. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 329. 

South African War, 420, 422. 

Spain, diplomatic crisis concern- 
ing, 211-217. 

Spath, Madame de, 34, 36, 61, 62. 

Stockmar, Christian Friedrich, 4, 

29, 67, 69, 77-82, 90, 134, 140, 
143, 152, 156-158, 162, 165, 
179, 181, 188, 199, 223, 232, 
246-248, 251, 258, 282-287, 301, 
348, 407. 

Suez Canal, 349. 
Sussex, Duke of, 8, 9. 

Tennyson, Lord, 396. 
"The Boy Jones," 183-186. 
Tories, the, 38, 122, 146, 148, 162, 
163, 343. 

Victoria, Mary Louise, Duchess 
of Kent, 16, 18, 19, 21-25, 29- 

30, 32, 35, 37 et seq., 73-75, 
111, 124, 134, 291. 

Victoria, Princess, antecedents 
of, 1-22; birth of, 24; child- 
hood of, 25-70; christening of, 
26-27 ; prophecy concerning, 
23; Queen of Great Britain, 



68 et seq.; attempts upon life 
of. 375-379; bereavements, 375; 
children of, 257, 367; closing 
scenes, 420 et seq.; happy mar- 
ried life of, 253-296; Jubilee 
Celebration, 383; made Em- 
press of India, 357-359; mar- 
riage, 152; official relations 
with Beacongfield, 327-366; 
with Gladstone, 327-366; with 
Palmer ston, 204 et seq.; reli- 
gious beliefs, 406-408; widow- 
hood, 297-326. 

Victorian Age, 195. 

" Victoria-Stift," 290. 

Wales, Prince of, 170, 193, 258- 
260, 280-282, 292, 328, 368, 
386-387, 407. 

Wellington, Duke of, 17, 18, 22, 
71, 113, 117, 121, 123, 147, 
250. 

Westminster Abbey, 383. 

Whigs, the, 32, 39, 83, 116, 128, 
148, 189, 192, 240. 

Whig Ministry, 56, 247 ; resigna- 
tion of, 167. 

Whitehall Gardens, 354. 

Wilberforce, 32. 

William, King, 53 et seq.; death 
of, 68. 

William III, 248. 

William IV, 396. 

Windsor, 7, 37, 56, 59, 68, 96, 
144, 159, 168, 173, 186, 190, 
271, 273, 278, 305, 359, 375, 
391, 394, 401. 

" Woman's Rights," 409. 

York, Duke of, 8, 13, 14, 17, 32, 

38. 

Zulu War, 375. 



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